The women’s cross country team went to Carbon Canyon Park in Brea, California for the Mark Convert Open.

This was the first meet of the season for the Falcons and raced in a 5K course.

The team placed in 7th place and the meet consisted of 11 teams, five of them being community colleges.

Cerritos College earned a total of 197 team points.

Out of the five community colleges that participated in the Mark Convert Open, Cerritos College placed third out of the community colleges.

Head coach Bryan Ramos said, “We can improve. Obviously our top girl [Marylu Pulido] did what she did but our second girl [,Maria Orosco,] we expected to be closer to [Pulido] so that can be fixed and our 3-5 [runners] can improve and we know what we need to fix.”

“Women need to be top three in Fresno. We are familiar with the course and especially in the women’s side we have 4 women who ran it last year and its the state preview meet,” Ramos said.

The team average time for Cerritos 20 minutes and 16 seconds in the 5K course.

Sophomore Marylu Pulido placed 18th overall out of the 120 runners with a time of 19 minutes 10 seconds. Pulido finished first among the community college runners that participated.

“It was pretty good the girls stuck together, but overall we were pretty good. We still need to work on how we start. It was a good race overall even though its a slow course with the grass and dirt,” she said.

“The girls should run faster and we should be able to stick together and we will do very well.” Pulido added.

The next race will be on Saturday, Sept. 12 at the Fresno Invitational.