The Cerritos College women's track and field team withstood the pending bad weather on Saturday and turned in some impressive performances at the Cerritos Invitational. The Falcons, who will compete in the Cal State Los Angeles Invitational next weekend, won five events on the day.

It started with the 400-meter relay team of Ariel Thomas (Warren HS), Tiarah McDaniel, Shukura Tyler (Warren HS) and Lauryn Ballard (Narbonne HS) edging Southwestern College (48.96) for first place with a time of 48.72. Sophomore Jenai Vickers (Lakewood HS) ran a first place time of 15.26 in the 100-meter HH with sophomore teammate Jordan Agnew (Los Alamitos HS/Cal State Long Beach) a close second place at 15.38. Thomas also ran the 100 meters and took a close second place with a time of 12.55.

In the 800 meters, sophomore Jocelyn Orozco (Downey HS) won with a time of 2:21.85, with sophomore teammate Ariel Melendez (St. Paul HS) coming in second place at 2:22.40. Not far behind that duo was sophomore Janet Salazar (Paramount HS) with a fourth place time of 2:24.04. Melendez also came in third place in the 1500 meters at 4:49.23, with Salazar in fourth place at 4:49.79. Freshman Nylia Hudspeth (Kennedy HS) saw her time of 59.48 earn her a second place finish in the 400 meters with Tyler in third place with a clocking of 1:00.19.

Sophomore Citlaly Fabela (La Serna HS) ran the 400-meter IH in a time of 1:05.26, which put her in second place, while in the 200 meters, Ballard turned in a fourth place time of 26.03.

In the field events, freshman Brandy Navarro won the high jump when she cleared 1.56 meters, while sophomore Erica Davis (Fountain Valley HS) turned in a personal best hight of 3.10 meters in the pole vault to come in second place. Sophomore jumper Raiven Ellis (California HS) earned a pair of third place finishes in the long jump (5.25 meters) and triple jump (11.33 meters), with Thomas triple jumping 11.02 meters to place fourth. Freshman Jessica Tobias (Bell Gardens HS) came in first place in the javelin with a distance of 27.31 with Ballard in second place at 27.30 meters.

Photos by Daryl Peterson