Pirate women take second overall at Cerritos Invitational

CERRITOS -- The Orange Coast College women's cross country team used six top-12 team scores to earn a second-place showing at the 2019 Cerritos Falcons Invitational on Friday at Don Knabe Park.

The Pirates finished with 42 points and trailed only Saddleback (27) for the meet, while College of the Desert (86), Santa Ana (90) and host Cerritos (104) rounded out the top five.

Sophomore standout Meagan Silves was OCC's top runner, finishing the 5K course with a ninth-place time of 19 minutes. 9.3 seconds. A trio of freshmen teammates -- Kaila Gindlesperger (19:28.5), Emily Olson (19:35.8) and Syler Madrid (19:39) -- earned the Pirates 7-8-9 points, respectively, while sophomore Valeria Rodriguez earned 12 points with a time of 20:29.6.

Other top times for the Pirates included Kelsey Withers (20:41.6), Angie Mateo (20:53.1), Alize Segura (23:34.1) and Morgan Novak (24:48.9).

OCC will return to action on Saturday at the Vanguard Invitational, beginning at 8 a.m. at Irvine Park in Orange.