Daytona State sophomore Christian Ruocco won the South Florida Invitational Friday night at The Claw, USF's cross country course, in a time of 25:54 for the 8000 meter race.   Ruocco ran with a front pack that included upperclassmen from NCAA Division 1 schools, and took the lead with about one mile to go in the race.  "Christian has good finishing speed and handled the surges in the race very well.  This was a nice effort and outcome for him going into the Region 8 and NJCAA national championships," commented Coach Judy Wilson.  The race was at 5:50pm, and the weather was hot and humid.  The course itself was somewhat soft and wet in several spots which made the race times slower than usual.  Daytona State finished fourth overall as a team, even without #1 runner Sebastian Hernandez.  Freshman Jared Falchook had another solid performance finishing in 8th place (26:53) followed by freshman Julian Pomales in 26th place with a time of 27:36.  Other Falcons up front were Mitchell Curtis (27:53, 33rd),  Jayven Garcia (27:59, 35th), Brendan Hamilton (28:21, 50th),  Ivan Marin-Padilla (28:49, 66th) Richard Lebron (29:17, 77th) Aaron Mercado (30:30, 101st) and Jacob Bormet (30:48, 108th) 

The Falcons scored 103 points. Florida Gulf Coast won the meet with 54 points, Stetson was second with 67 points and Florida Southern was third with 97 points.  Next up for the Falcons is the Region 8 Championships on October 28th at Apalachee Regional Park in Tallahassee.