Although they competed without several of their top runners, the Cerritos College women's cross country team was able to outdistance the rest of the 10-team field at Guajome Park to come in first place at the Palomar Invitational on Friday. The Falcons, who had six of the top 14 finishers over the 5K course, compiled 31 team points to easily finish ahead of second place Palomar College, who had 93 team points. The team will now get a good look at how they stand with the rest of Southern California, as they compete in the SoCal Preview Meet next Saturday at Fairview Park in Coast Mesa.

Heading the strong list of Cerritos runners was freshman Isabel Medina (Paramount HS), who came in second place overall with a time of 20:05, which :30 seconds behind overall winner, Jazmin Romero of San Bernardino Valley College. Another strong runner for the Falcons was sophomore Maira Solis (Roosevelt HS), whose time of 20:18 earned her fourth place out of the 94 runners, while freshmen Amineh Beltran (Warren HS) and Patsy Hurley (Mark Keppel HS) finished in the top 10, as Beltran (20:58) came in eighth place and Hurley crossed the finish line in 21:14, good for 10th place.

Rounding out the team scoring was sophomore Alexis Perez (Cantwell HS), who earned a 12th place finish in 21:24, with freshman Sara Gonzalez (El Rancho HS) right behind in 14th place in a time of 21:24. There was a bit of a drop before the next Cerritos runner was clocked in, with freshman Jasmine Ayala (Lakewood HS) posting a time of 22:37, which put her in 31st place. The final three Falcon runners consisted of freshmenAngelyca Osnaya-Tyson (Long Beach Poly HS; 38th place; 23:14), freshman Denise Perez (Warren HS; 41st place; 23:22) and Jessica Garcia (Warren HS; 54th place; 23:59).