With 21 schools competing in the Southern California Preview Meet at El Dorado Park in Long Beach on Friday, the Cerritos College women's cross country team finished in second place with 121 team points. Only Riverside City College finished ahead of the Falcons, as they compiled 111 team points.

 

The team will run in the Golden West Invitational at Central Park in Huntington Beach at 10:00 a.m. next Friday.

 

Running the 5K course, sophomore Megan Feitz (Fountain Valley HS) just missed out on finishing in the Top 10, as her time of 19:13.7 put her in 11th place overall out of 168 entries. Only two other runners from the South Coast Conference completed the course ahead of her.

 

It was 23 seconds later before the next Falcon runner crossed the finish line, as sophomore Samantha Martinez (Fountain Valley HS) was clocked in 19:40.7, which landed her in 21st place. She was in a pack of seven runners that finished within six seconds of each other. Freshman Evelyn Mejia (Norwalk HS) was the third Cerritos runner to finish the course, as her time of 20:07.7 put her in 30th place overall, as she held off a Moorpark College runner by less than a second.

 

There was a bit of a gap after Mejia in the runners, with Delilah Chavez (Lakewood HS) posting a 35th place time of 20:45.7 and was second in a four-person pack. The fifth runner to complete the team scoring was freshman Diana Perez (Norwalk HS), who was clocked in 21:39.7, good enough- for 51st overall.

 

Also running on the day for the Falcons were Kimberly Ibarra (Warren HS; 22:00.9; 58th place), Vanessa Rojas (Downey HS; 22:08.5; 62nd place), Lila Palmer (Long Beach Poly HS; 22:08.7; 63rd place), Leslie Juarez (Warren HS; 22:20.0; 69th place), Ariel Alvarez (Firebaugh HS; 22:24.7; 71st place), Jasmine Osorio (Segerstrom HS; 22:25.7; 72nd place), Natalia Orta (Norwalk HS; 24:51.5; 105th place), Claudia Rios (Paramount HS; 25:23.7; 113th place) and Viviana Rodriguez (Santa Fe HS; 25:31.0; 114th place).