Mariah Graves is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism student assigned to cover Rancho Solano Prep for AZPreps365.com

Using a 36-0 run at one point, Rancho Solano built an insurmountable lead early Tuesday night en route to a 98-15 win over Sequoia Pathway.

The defending state champions (10-2) have won six of their last seven games and sit atop the 2A Valley standings.

The Pumas struggled to score in the first quarter, only putting three points on the scoreboard.

The Mustangs used their grind mentality to outrebound the Pumas both offensively and defensively. 

Junior Noe Vargas urged his team to still hustle despite being ahead of the entire game. Only playing in the first half, Vargas finished with 8 points.

Vargas said the team needs to stay hungry after games like this.  

“Teams like this are good to work on us more than it is about them,” Vargas said. 

Vargas also said the Mustangs need to work on their help-side defense. 

“Our help-side defense needs work just because we kind of relax a little bit too much,” Vargas said. “We should work on staying focused all four quarters instead of just the first and third.” 

Rancho Solano coach Aaron Trigg said his team played hard and every night they are trying to find one or two things to improve on. 

"We really wanted to work on our execution tonight, which I thought we did a good job, especially in the second half,” Trigg said. “Regardless of the score, we want our guys to stay disciplined and do the little things we have to do to be successful throughout the year.” 

He also said the team’s success in scoring was due to them playing unselfishly. 

“We had good ball movement and when everyone is sharing the ball good things happen,” Trigg said. “You end up getting great shots at the rim, open threes and we were able to knock them down tonight.” 

Most importantly, Trigg thinks his team needs to continue to defend better. 

“We have to be aware of our help-side defense,” Trigg said. “At times we have little mental lapses so we are just working on keeping our focus for 32 minutes throughout a game and not having any of those drops in attention to detail and focus.”    

Rancho Solano plays at 7 p.m. Thursday at Arizona Lutheran Academy (8-4).

Sequoia Pathway (1-5) will play at Horizon Honors (1-8) at 5:30 p.m. Friday.