Rio Hondo College kept its hopes alive for a Foothill Conference championship thanks to a 5-2 win over College of the Desert on Tuesday at The Jungle. The Roadrunners at 17-5 remain two games back of first-place Chaffey College at 19-3 with just two games remaining. Rio Hondo continues its three-game series with Desert on the road on Thursday at 2:30 p.m. while Chaffey is at third-place San Bernardino Valley (14-8).

On Tuesday, the Roadrunners erased a 1-0 Desert lead by scoring two runs in the third and broke a 2-2 tie in the sixth with two more runs and added an insurance run in the eighth. Ruben Rios' RBI-single in the sixth that scored Mike Hernandez proved to be the game-winner.

Rio Hondo totaled nine hits in the contest, including two each from R.J. Romo, Randy Buenrostro, and Danny Marquez.

Joe Wills struck out 14 batters in earning the win for the Roadrunners. He allowed one earned run and seven hits in the complete-game effort to improve to 8-1 overall.

Rio Hondo is 22-12 overall heading into its final two games of the regular season.