It may have been the first meet of the season for the Cerritos College women's cross country team, but it also provided them an opportunity to get accustomed the to the course they are working toward running on in November. Woodward Park also serves as the location of the 3C2A State Championships at the end of the season.

On Friday, the Falcons finished in a tie for fourth place with UC Merced, as both teams compiled 111 team points and trailed third place Hartnell College by just three points. Next Friday, the team will run at the Oxnard Invitational.

Pacing the squad was sophomore Megan Feitz (Fountain Valley HS), who was the fifth place finisher on the day with an impressive time of 19:52.39. There was a 14-second gap between Feitz and the fourth place finisher, while she held off the sixth place finisher by 18 seconds. Freshman teammate Evelyn Mejia (Norwalk HS) was the 17th runner to cross the finish line with her clocking of 21:07.02.

Not far behind was sophomore Delilah Chavez (Lakewood HS), whose time of 21:40.08 was the 21st best time of the 90 runners. There was a 1:15 time gap before the fourth Falcons runner completed the course, as Lila Palmer (Long Beach Poly HS) posted a 43rd place time of 22:55.70, with Kimberly Ibarra (Warren HS) rounding out the team scoring, as she touched up right behind Palmer in 23:03.51, good for 46th place.

 

Also competing in the day for the Falcons included Vanessa Rojas (Downey HS; 55th place; 23:30.66), Diana Perez (Norwalk HS; 59th place; 23:42.16), Leslie Juarez (Warren HS; 60th place; 23:42.73), Ariel Alvarez (Firebaugh HS; 61st place; 23:48.87), Natalia Orta (Norwalk HS; 78th place; 26:13.28), Claudia Rios (Paramount HS; 83rd place; 27:09.46) and Viviana Rodriguez (Santa Fe HS; 84th place; 27:34.20).