The Cerritos College women's cross country team finished with 340 team points to come in 14th place out of 27 schools at the Southern California Championships on Friday. The meet, which was a 5000-meter event and held at Central Park in Santa Clarita, was won by Orange Coast College, who finished with 58 points, with three schools from the South Coast Conference also finishing ahead of Cerritos. The team will now conclude their season on November 23 at the CCCAA State Championships, which will be held at Woodward Park in Fresno.

The first runner to complete the course for the Falcons was sophomore Isabel Medina (Paramount HS), who came in 35th place out of 199 total runners with a time of 20:17.42. The winning time of 18:35.78 was posted by conference opponent Laura Aceves of East Los Angeles College. Medina was part of a block of runners that started to separate near the finish line. She was followed by freshman Stephanie Ruiz (Western HS), whose time of 20:46.80 placed her 60th on the day and was park of a group of five runners that all finished within one second of each other.

Only :11 seconds behind Ruiz was sophomore Patricia Hurley (Mark Keppel HS), who took 69th place in 20:57.83, while sophomore Kathia Avila (Cerritos HS) placed 82nd in a time of 21:09.94. With such a large group of runners in the event, there were blocks of runners crossing the finish line throughout the race, and pushing ahead of a couple in the final few hundred yards sometimes means a team can jump several spots in the team's finish.

The final three runners who ran for Cerritos included freshman Ariel Melendez (St. Paul HS), who took 94th place in 21:25.18, with sophomore Kaela Crone (Kennedy HS) finishing in a time of 21:48.25, which earned her 115th place. The top five runners comprise the team scoring, while each team had six runners in the event. Freshman Maddy Focht (Long Beach Poly HS) finished the race in 22:41.71, which put her in 144th place overall.