As one of 17 teams competing at the Golden West Invitational on Friday, the Cerritos College women's cross country team finished in first place with 75 team points. They took four of the first 16 places in the 5K run and 31 points better than second place College of the Canyons, who finished with 106 team points. Next up for the Falcons will be the Southern California Regional Invitational, which will take place on October 4 at Chaffey College.

The first Cerritos runner to complete the course was Evelyn Mejia (Norwalk HS), whose time of 21:07.76 put her in 12th place out of 141 total runners. She was followed closely by Diana Raya Perez (Norwalk HS) with a 15th place time of 21:18.06, with two more Falcon runners finishing four seconds apart. It was Jayla Barnwell (Warren HS) who took 18th place overall with a clocking of 21:27.46, with the fourth Cerritos runner, Ariel Alvarez (Firebaugh HS), not far off in 21:31.98, good for 21st place overall.

Closing out the team scoring was Lila Palmer (Long Beach Poly HS) with her 31st place time of 21:59.35. The team also received a strong performance from Claudia Rios (Paramount HS; 22:35.09, 44th place), Viviana Rodriguez (Santa Fe HS; 22:42.21; 48th place) and Kaitlyn Macias (La Mirada HS; 24:40.72; 89th place).

Photos courtesy of Brad Hoiseth