W. Cross Country: Valeria Guerra qualifies for CCCAA State Championships

Falcons to have on representative at state championships
Falcons to have one representative at state championships

Although the Cerritos College women's cross country team did not qualify for the CCCAA State Championships, they will be represented by one runner. As a team at the Southern California Championships at Mission Bay in San Diego, the Falcons placed 19th out of 28 schools with 472 team points. Freshman Valeria Guerra (Warren HS) will be the team's lone representative in two weeks at Woodward Park in Fresno for the state championships.

Guerra earned a 41st place finish overall by completing the 5K course in a time of 21:34.9, which was :32 seconds faster than her time at the SoCal Preview Meet back in September. She was fourth in a pack of five runners that finished within five seconds of each other. It was nearly two minutes before the next Falcon runner crossed the finish line, as freshman Charlotte Barrera (El Rancho HS) took 93rd place with her clocking of 23:15.0. It was also :12 seconds faster than the first time she ran the course.

Only :10 seconds behind was Xitlali Pulido (Whittier HS), who was clocked in a time of 23:25.4, which put her in 98th place out of 183 total runners. She held off two runners at the finish line, including freshman teammate Yvonne Villalba (Los Alamitos HS), who was 100th overall in a time of 23:26.8. Pulido shaved :10 seconds off her previous time, while Villalba took :21 seconds off her time the first time running the course.

The final runner for Cerritos compile the team score was sophomore Glenn Nance (Gardena HS), whose time of 26:52.0 put her in 162nd place on the day. She didn't run with the team at the SoCal Preview Meet earlier in the season. Also running the course for the first time for the Falcons was freshman Tyshay Johnson (Long Beach Jordan HS), and she placed 172nd overall in a time of 27:51.9.