The Rio Hondo Women’s team returned home with a bang as they get a convincing win against their rivals from Long Beach Community College on March 6.

The Lady Roadrunners didn’t play a home game in a while where three consecutive road games came against College of the Desert, Victor Valley, and Cerritos.

The stretch lasted about a week and half which started Feb. 25 and ended on March 4.

The match against Victor Valley got rained out but the team unfortunately came up short against the experienced College of the Desert and Cerritos Colleges.

Once the team returned home to play against Long Beach on a sunny Thursday afternoon, Head Coach Karen Unger knew her players needed to step up their game for a much needed team win.

As always, positive energy was in the air as Coach Unger is constantly reassuring her players to stay calm, have fun, and play their game.

Due to the departure of one of her players, Coach Unger needed to put her players a rank higher than usual where her number two player would play their number one, three against two, so on and so forth.

Despite this alleged disadvantage, the Lady Roadrunners performed extremely well.

The team was able to get their first season win in dominating fashion as they handled their opponents pretty well.

Every player fought hard and by the end of the entire match, the results heavily favored Rio Hondo as they nearly swept Long Beach 8-1.

Player Stephanie Rodriquez came to play as she and her opponent displayed a very entertaining and hard –fought battle.

Rodriguez’s graceful yet powerful style of play lead her to a well-earned victory. It was not easy, but she was able to keep the upper-hand on her opponent eventually pulling her the win.

Rodriguez’s Doubles match was just as impressive. Alongside with Delia Hidalgo, they were able to jump on their opponents early and earn themselves a good lead.

The duo was able to win one set convincingly and on their way to win the final set until their opponents fought back.

The Long Beach players were able to crawl back from a few games down causing the match to go to a tie breaker.

Fortunately, Rodriquez and Hidalgo didn’t allow their opponents to capitalize and put the final nail in the coffin securing them the win.

One of the other honorable mentions from the afternoon was player Mindy Lujan, who set a personal record by playing the longest match of her life.

Her match lasted a total of two hours 45 minutes and most importantly won the match. “It felt amazing!” said Lujan with a big smile on her face.

Overall, Coach Unger was very proud and hopes this big win serves as a confidence booster to her players for the upcoming games.

Rio Hondo now stands with a record of 1-4 for the conference and are looking forward to improve with every match.

The team will again be on the road for a couple more games but return to a long home stand starting with San Diego Mesa on March 20 at 2pm.

They also play two games through the spring break against College of the Desert on March 25 and Victor Valley on March 27, which both start at 2 p.m.