Lake Ridge High School started a lot of new clubs this year, including a ping pong club. It is the first ping pong club in the Mansfield Independent School District as well. The club is sponsored by Mr. Riyanto, an electives teacher at Lake Ridge, and meets on Wednesday’s after school from 3:00p.m. until 4:00p.m.

Mr. Riyanto has always loved the pastime and thought it was interesting.

“I love ping pong. I played a lot when I was younger and found it to be very interesting. I also always wanted to be Forest Gump,” said Riyanto.

Phillip Dinh, senior, joined ping pong club because he thought it would be fun.

“Ping pong is a lot of fun and I like Mr. Riyanto, so I decided to join,” said Dinh.

Although Dinh enjoys ping pong, he hopes to learn some other skills as well.

“I hope to learn a sense of teamwork when playing the game while having fun,” said Dinh.

Victor Gonzalez, senior, has been playing ping pong for a while outside of school.

“I’ve been playing ping pong for two years and I decided to join the club here at school because I had a lot of friends doing it and I wanted to better my skills playing ping pong,” said Gonzalez.

Along with having fun, Mr. Riyanto hopes to start a chain reaction in beginning this after school activity.

“I would like for every high school in the district to have a ping pong club so we can have tournaments and competitions between the schools someday,” said Riyanto.