With their 15th place finish at the Southern California Championships on Friday, the Cerritos College women's cross country team has qualified for the CCCAA State Championships. The Falcons compiled 371 team points in the 5K race, which was held at Irvine Regional Park on Friday. The state championships will be held at Woodward Park in Fresno on November 19.
The top 14 teams automatically qualify for the state championships, but because there weren't enough schools from Northern California competing with at least five runners, four more teams from SoCal were added to the championships. Glendale College won the team championship with 45 team points, with three other teams from the South Coast Conference finishing ahead of Cerritos.
Leading the way for the Falcons was freshman Rebecca Harris (Buena Park HS), who came in 58th place overall out of 185 runners with a time of 20:42.9. As a team, Cerritos had their next five runners finish within a minute of each other. But with so many runners on the course, they were spread out and it added to their team point total.
Freshman Sabrina Padilla (Montebello HS) posted a 76th place time of 21:15.8, with freshman Gabrielle Mendoza (Schurr HS) just six seconds behind. She earned 80th place overall with her clocking of 21:21.1, while freshman Raquel Hernandez (Downey HS) came in 86th place in a time of 21:28.8. Rounding out the team's five scoring runners was freshman Tyler Simpson (Dominguez HS) with her 92nd place time of 21:48.2.
Also running for the Falcons were sophomore Adriana Velasco (Downey HS), who came in 103rd place in 22:14.2, while freshman Katherine Batres (Schurr HS) finished the course in 22:24.0, which put her in 109th place.