Competing with 30 other schools, the Cerritos College women's cross country team came in sixth place at the SoCal Preview Meet on Friday. Running the 5K event at Irvine Regional Park, the Falcons compiled 268 team points and had only one school in the South Coast Conference finish ahead of them. The team will now run the Golden West Invitational next Friday at Central Park in Huntington Beach.
The first Cerritos runner to finish the race was sophomore Adriana Velasco (Downey HS), whose time of 20:27.8 earned her a 35th place overall out of the 244 entries on the day. She was followed almost a minute later by a contingent of four Falcons that finished within 10 seconds of each other. The bunching of runners helped the team hold off seventh place Santa Ana College, who finished with 275 team points.
That quartet was led by freshman Rebecca Harris (Buena Park HS), who came in 59th place overall in 21:23.6, while freshman Gabrielle Mendoza (Schurr HS) earned 63rd place with her clocking of 23:30.2. The tandem of freshmen Sabrina Padilla (Montebello HS) and Katherine Batres (Schurr HS) placed 65th (21:31.3) and 66th (21:33.2), respectively. Not too far behind that group was sophomore Brianna Gill (La Serna HS), with a 73rd overall place time of 21:44.0.
As a team, the Falcons had 12 competitors and included Kathia Munoz (Paramount HS; 93rd place; 22:03.7), Giselle Burgos (El Rancho HS; 102nd place; 22:24.8), Bailee Wilkerson (Mayfair HS; 106th place; 22:34.7), Raquel Hernandez (Downey HS; 113th place; 22:41.2), Esmeralda Soto (Downey HS; 138th place; 23:49.7), Heidi Rouse (Mayfair HS; 162nd place; 24:40.3) and Da'Myah Ward (Long Beach Poly HS; 194th place; 26:24.2).