news

Indio’s Sienna Rodriguez is The Desert Sun Girls’ Athlete of the Year

VaselineJuly 7, 2024

1 6 minutes read

Indio’s Sienna Rodriguez is The Desert Sun Girls’ Athlete of the Year

When you work with Sienna Rodriguez from Indio High, you feel like you can achieve anything.

“Of course she’s a great athlete, but it’s her mentality and leadership that really sets her apart,” Indio girls water polo coach Marcos Perez said. “Her ability to instill confidence and self-belief in her teammates is truly amazing. And her voice in our team meetings was instrumental in keeping the girls confident and focused.”

As a four-sport athlete, Rodriguez spent much of last season in the huddle room. When her teams broke the huddle, it was almost always to win.

Rodriguez, a senior, was a starter on the Rajahs’ volleyball team that went 14-0 and won a DVL championship. She was a starting outfielder on the Rajahs’ softball team that went 14-0 and won a DVL championship. And she was one of the leading scorers on the Rajahs’ water polo team that had the moment of the entire desert sports season when it went on an energetic and improbable run to a CIF-SS title. She even joined the track and field team to run in one of the relays during her softball season.

For all these accomplishments, Rodriguez was named The Desert Sun’s Girl Athlete of the Year.

‘What is water polo?’

Rodriguez was a lifelong softball player. She played it for years as a kid, and when she got to high school, she knew it was going to be her sport. But like all seniors in the class of 2024, her freshman year was largely wiped out by COVID, particularly when it came to track and field.

Being a social person, that time away was difficult, so when the fall of her sophomore year came and she had some friends who played volleyball, she decided to try that sport. Then the winter sports season started and the idea of playing water polo came up.

“Honestly, I didn’t even know what water polo was when I got to high school,” Rodriguez said, reflecting on her humble beginnings in the sport. “And here I am, a sophomore in the pool with a bunch of other girls, most of whom have never played before, and it’s pretty amazing to think back to that time and how we came together and won CIF this year.”

Of course, that sophomore version of the Rajahs took a beating in the pool, but Rodriguez was on the hook. The junior team started to rack up some wins and made the playoffs for the first time in school history, losing their first playoff game.

This year’s team? They pulled off one of the most incredible postseason runs in Desert history, ending up wearing the CIF-SS Division 6 championship plaque after a thrilling 9-8 win over El Modena in the finals.

Rodriguez had the team’s second-highest goal total and usually defended the other team’s best player, but again, her voice in the huddle was perhaps the most important.

“We kind of had a vision board that we made, and our main goal was to win a playoff game, just make it to the first round, which had never been done here,” Rodriguez said. “During the regular season, we play so many good teams with really good girls that have been playing for a long time, and it started with being competitive with them. When we got to the playoffs, my biggest word for us was ‘confidence.’ We’re going to go into the pool with confidence, never afraid.

“For years, especially that second year, we looked at the other team and thought, ‘Oh, we have to play this team, they’re so good,’ but this year, when we started doing that again, I thought, ‘Why are we scared? If we thought we were going to lose, we’re going to lose,'” Rodriguez said, recalling those moments in the huddle. “‘So let’s be confident. We can do this!’ And once we built our confidence as a group, I think our bond became so strong that we couldn’t lose anymore.”

How miraculous was the Rajahs’ title race? Consider this:

They had never won a playoff game before and had to win a wildcard game to get into Division 6. They won that game by just one goal.
In the quarter-finals they trailed Webb by six goals, but went on to win 18-16.
In the semi-finals, they trailed Anaheim by two goals with 3 minutes left, but they came back to win 14-13.
The team from El Modena they defeated in the title match was the No. 1 team in the division and had defeated Indio 15-6 earlier in the season.

And then the final whistle sounded for victory in the championship match?

“There’s just no way to describe it,” Rodriguez said. “I’ve never felt that feeling before. It’s everyone’s dream in high school to make it to the finals and win, right? And to be there in the moment was so surreal. We heard all of our fans who had made the trip all screaming, and we were just sitting in the pool looking at each other like, ‘Wow! We did this.'”

Multi-sport athlete

While the water polo title was a once-in-a-lifetime moment, Rodriguez is also a talented athlete on dry land.

On the volleyball court, she was a consistent performer for the Rajahs, making second team all-league for the undefeated Rajahs. Not bad considering, like water polo, she had never played before when she was on the varsity team as a sophomore.

According to volleyball coach Meagan Nolasco, Rodriguez was especially deadly from the service line.

“She played great consistency on offense and on serve she learned where to go with her serve on big point runs for us,” Nolasco said. “She was also reliable in crucial moments of close games, and made smart choices. She played a big part in our undefeated DVL title, and it was great to have her with us all these years.”

It was on the softball field that Rodriguez felt most at home. Patrolling left field, she batted .309 with 26 runs and 12 RBIs for a talented Rajahs team that not only blazed through the DVL undefeated but also advanced to the Division 6 CIF-SS quarterfinals.

When Rodriguez heard that the track team didn’t have enough girls available to run the relays, she stepped in and helped out as long as it didn’t conflict with softball.

For Rodriguez, it was important to play multiple sports in an age where specialization is the norm.

“Softball is something I always knew I was going to play. It was where I was meant to be,” Rodriguez said. “But I really enjoy staying busy and keeping myself fresh, I guess, with new things. I’m a very active person and very social, so it’s great to meet new people and be around these great friends that I have through these sports. Connecting with other people is really what I enjoy doing.”

Life after sports

Rodriguez, who excels in all of these sports and has a grade point average well above 4.0, will be attending UC Santa Barbara in the fall.

She said she doesn’t plan on playing any of her sports at the collegiate level, and that’s fine with her. She’s moving on with the rest of her life, but she can already look back on her high school athletic career with nostalgia.

“It brought so much to my life on a daily basis, knowing that I had things to look forward to every day,” she said. “Like if I had a big test during the day or something, I always knew that I was going to go to the pool afterwards and see my coaches or learn more about volleyball or whatever. It was fun being with my girls and challenging each other.”

And then, as if it were something out of a high school sports promo video, Rodriguez explained how it will help her advance as a high school student.

“I think my communication skills have developed tremendously and I think it’s going to be easier to communicate with the adults around me because I’ve had so many interactions with different adults and different coaching styles,” she said. “So I think I already know how to communicate with different professors or people around me. I’m looking forward to making new friends and being around people and doing sports that can be something you have in common, like, ‘You did that in high school? So did I,’ and you can meet people that way. And of course, playing sports also challenged me in the classroom, time management, homework, and stuff like that. Playing sports in high school did so much for me.”

Shad Powers is a columnist for The Desert Sun. Reach him at [email protected].

Your choise

We’ve given you five of the best female high school athletes of the year to vote for online and you, the readers, have chosen Palm Desert freshmen as your girl athletes of the year Katelyn Gallagher. Gallagher had a remarkable year, playing football and basketball simultaneously and helping both teams reach the playoffs. The first-team All-DEL basketball player averaged over 20 points per game.