Competing at the Southern California Championships on Saturday at Woodley Park in Van Nuys, the Cerritos College women's cross country team finished in fourth place. The Falcons, who will now travel to Fresno for the CCCAA State Championships on November 22, compiled 184 points and held off Southwestern College, who took fifth place with 187 team points. South Coast Conference rival Mt. San Antonio College took second place with 79 team points, with Glendale College winning the championship.

Running the 5K course on a hot day set up the possibility for problems with the runners. Seemingly affected the most was freshman Marylu Pulido (Whittier HS), who is generally one of the team's stronger runners. She slipped all the way back to 83rd overall out of 172 runners and posted a time of 20:45.8. The Falcons first finisher was sophomore Ariel Melendez (St. Paul HS), who was clocked in 18:53.0 to come in 12th place. She was part of a pack of runners that all finished within three seconds of each other and Melendez crossed in .02 of a second ahead of Shalyn Malbritto of College of the Canyons.

Cerritos saw their next four runners finish within :30 seconds of each other to help compile their team score. Freshman Maria Orosco (Katella HS) turned in a 30th place time of 19:33.9, while sophomore Stephanie Ruiz (Western HS) wasn't far behind in 19:46.6 to place 39th overall. It was sophomore Janet Salazar (Paramount HS) that finished next for the Falcons, as her time of 20:00.5 was good for 50th overall, while Jocelyn Orozco (Downey HS) placed 53rd overall in 20:05.1.

Also competing for Cerritos was freshman Stephanie Perea (Downey HS), who came in 71st overall with a time of 20:20.5, while Pulido was the final Falcon runner to finish the course.