On the strength of two wins, along with four second and four third place finishes, the Cerritos College women's swimming team finished in second place at the Golden West Invitational on Friday. With their 740.5 team points, the Falcons trailed only the host Rustlers, who won the meet with 937 team points. On Saturday, Cerritos will travel to the Pasadena Invitational in their final competition before the start of the South Coast Conference Championships.

Wins for the Falcons at the Golden West Invitational came from freshman Raquel Gabayeron (Cerritos HS), who posted a time of 1:03.50 in the 100-yard butterfly, while freshman teammate Milena Hernandez (Cerritos HS) was a strong fifth place with a clocking of 1:12.91. In the 500-yard freestyle, sophomore Katherine Gabayeron (Cerritos HS) defeated the rest of the competitors with a convincing time of 5:35.03, which was :12 seconds ahead of the second place finisher.

Several relay teams also swam well, which resulted in a pair of second place finishes and one third place. In the 400-yard medley relay, the quartet of freshman Carla Harvey (Potomac Falls, VA HS), Katherine Gabayeron, Raquel Gabayeron and freshman Angela Covarrubias (Paramount HS) completed the race in 4:31.34, which was well off the winning time and it edged SCC rival Long Beach City College by three seconds. In the 200-yard freestyle relay, Hernandez, Covarrubias and the Gabayeron sisters held off Grossmont College for second place, as their time of 1:48.48 was 1.50 seconds better than the Griffins. As for th 200-yard medley relay, the Falcons recorded a time of 2:00.31, which earned them a third place finish. In that race, Grossmont defeated the team of Harvey, the Gabayeron sisters and Covarrubias by less than one second.

Katherine Gabayeron turned in a second place performance in the 200-yard IM, with a time of 2:19.50, with Raquel Gabayeron in third place (2:21.60), while Harvey took eighth place with a clocking of 2:23.18. Another second place finish for Gabyeron came in the 200-yard freestyle, as her time of 2:01.36 was four seconds off the winning time, turned in by Zeineb Kalfallah of Golden West. Raquel Gabayeron posted a third place time of 1:17.70 in the 100-yard breaststroke, with freshman teammate Teresa Zuniga (California HS) a close fifth place when she touched up in 1:19.70.

In the 1650-yard freestyle, Harvey came in fourth place, while sophomore Yuridia Vela (Schurr HS) was a distant fifth place, with Harvey also turning in a sixth place time of 1:08.79 in the 100-yard backstroke.

Photo by Daryl Peterson