AURORA — In less than two seasons, Michaela Onyenwere surpassed 1,000 career points. Grandview’s talented sophomore had no idea she was even close.
“Oh,” she said after the Wolves’ 75-48 home drubbing of Colorado Springs’ Palmer in a second-round Class 5A playoff game Friday night. “I didn’t know. That was cool.”
So was the overall performance of the Wolves, who climbed to 20-4 and will play at Lakewood on Tuesday in the Sweet 16. Grandview took control early and built on it. Onyenwere, a 6-foot forward who’s drawing all kinds of attention, scored eight straight points, the Terrors stumbled and the rout was on.
“If we want to keep advancing, we have to take care of business,” she said. “We take it one game at a time. (The Terrors) were a good sixth seed.”
Palmer, usually salty under coach Dave Shackelford, who just finished his 19th season in command, ended 13-12. The Terrors had 25 turnovers by halftime, trailed by 22 points and never got going.
“The kids did a great job,” Wolves coach Josh Ulitzky said in pointing to two aspects he enjoyed. First was Lenzi Hudson’s outside shooting that produced 22 points, including all five of the team’s 3-pointers. Second was the defense the Wolves laid on Palmer front-liner Jenn Urbaniak, who settled for 11 points and was never a factor.
“Lenzi was huge tonight, giving us some balance to help us out,” Ulitzky said. “I was really worried about (Urbaniak), but we did a pretty solid job on her.”
Abi Torres-Drozd added 11 points for the Terrors.
Onyenwere, who scored a record 503 points last season as a freshman, now has 1,004 in her career. She had 25 points Friday, including 23 in the first half, along with nine rebounds. It’s nice, she said, “but there are more important things about the playoffs.”
Neil H. Devlin: ndevlin@denverpost.com or
Palmer 8 16 16 8 — 48
Grandview 22 22 26 5 — 75
Palmer — Torres-Drozd 3 4-4 11, Burrell 2 4-4 8, Urbaniak 5 1-5 11, Albrecht 2 4-4 8, Butts 2 0-1 4, Stahl-Gome 1 0-0 2, Pogar 0 2-4 2, Fromal 0 2-2 2, Byas 0 0-0 0. Totals 15 17-24 48.
Grandview — Galloway 1 0-1 2, Brown 4 2-2 10, Onyenwere 10 5-7 25, Salazar 1 0-0 2, Penn 3 1-2 7, Hasstedt 2 0-0 4, Gash 0 0-0 0, Vallin 0 1-3 1, Hudson 7 3-6 22, Patrick 1 0-0 2, Beard 0 0-0 0. Totals 29 12-21 75.
3-pt. goals — Torres-Drozd; Hudson 5.
