After coming in fifth place at the CCCAA State Championships last year, the Cerritos College women's cross country team followed that up with a 6th place finish on Saturday. The Falcons, running at Woodward Park in Fresno, compiled 205 team points and just missed passing South Coast Conference opponent Mt. San Antonio College, who took fifth place with 203 points.

Running the 5K race and leading Cerritos were the duo of sophomores Maria Orosco (Katella HS) and Marylu Pulido (Whittier HS). The tandem, who finished eighth and ninth at the Southern California Championships and first (Pulido) and second (Orosco) at the South Coast Conference Championships, were separated by 24 seconds at the state championships.

Orosco turned in a 13th place time of 18:48.1 and held off her closest competition by less than a second. As for Pulido, her clocking of 19:12.3 put her in 18th place. Not took far behind was sophomore Elsa Vazquez Vallin (Warren HS), who posted a time of 19:43.1, which put her in 42nd place out of 211 overall runners.

The next two runners to round out the team scoring were freshman Alexis Garfias (Schurr HS) and sophomore Stephanie Perea (Downey HS). Recording a time of 20:07.7, Garfias took 62nd place, with Perea finishing the race in 20:19.8, good for 70th place. Also competing for Cerritos were freshman Adriana Velasco (Downey HS), who came in 96th place in 20:45.3, while sophomore Neiva Cuevas (Western HS) ran a time of 21:09.4, which put her in 111th place.