Friday, March 30 the Rio Hondo Women’s Beach Volleyball squad featured in a cluster match in Granada Beach against Mira Costa College and Long Beach City College.

The Lady Roadrunners fell victims to both teams, first losing to the Vikings 0-5 then falling to the Spartans by the same score.

It was a tough afternoon in Long Beach for Coach Teddi Esko’s team who hailed her opponents while mentioning that her team’s work levels were still sharp.

“Credit to our opponents, they’re great competitors and I think we did a good job of coming out and competing.” Esko said, “We just made some mistakes on our end and we’ll get out on the sand next week and work on some stuff.”

In the first match against LBCC, the ones (Madison Mader/Andrea Velasco) and twos (Sara Harding/Michelle Rosas) of the squad both managed to win set number one but the pair of two fell after losing the follow two sets.

Sophomore Harding felt they fought to the last hit but also mentioned how talented the Vikings are.

“Long Beach is a strong and smart team.” Harding said, “Michelle and I were able to keep them on their toes and had great plays to take them to a third set.”

In the second matchup against Mira Costa, the Roadrunners battled but stood no chance, losing every set played.

“During our Mira Costa game, we really let our mistakes affect our overall play,” Harding said, “We fought to the very end but that wasn’t enough to get a win over last season’s state champs.”

Despite the rough result, Coach Esko felt the way they played today against two of the best teams in the state is what will propel them as the season goes.

“This today, playing high level volleyball, is preparing us for matches in the future,” Esko said, “We work hard in practice and we are transfering what we’re working on into our game-play and I saw a lot of it.”