Rancho win wraps up Sunrise title

Matt O'Brien

Thursday, Feb. 11, 1999 | 10:59 a.m.

What a difference a year makes.

After finishing 11-15 overall and 8-8 in the Sunrise Division last season, Rancho's boys basketball team didn't even qualify for the 1998 Southern Zone tournament.

Yet Wednesday night at Chaparral, the Rams had a chance to do the unthinkable: win the division outright and take a No. 1 seed into next week's tournament.

Led by a tenacious full-court defense and a balanced scoring attack, Rancho waltzed into Chaparral's gym and walked away with a surprisingly easy 70-54 victory and the 1999 Sunrise Division title.

"We wanted to come out with a lot of intensity tonight," said Rancho's first-year coach Mike Dye. "We had a couple of letdowns in the first half, but we bounced back. The boys played really hard tonight."

Rancho (19-7, 13-2 Sunrise) forced 20 turnovers and had four players reach double figures in scoring. The Rams were led by junior Rod Lukes, who finished with 16 points and six rebounds, and senior Shaun Atkinson, who had 15 points, five assists and three steals.

"It was a little tough out there at first," said Lukes, whose steal and slam midway through the fourth quarter gave the Rams an insurmountable 57-44 lead. "But once we got into the swing of things and got used to the floor, we played a lot better."

One of Rancho's few problems throughout the game was finding a way to contain Chaparral's Richard Siegler. The 6-3 senior forward, who recently signed a football scholarship with Oregon State, kept the Cowboys in the game with 26 points and 16 rebounds.

Despite the loss, Chaparral (13-9, 11-4) clinched the No. 2 seed in the Sunrise Division.