Obendorf steps up for Metea Valley

Updated: March 23, 2011 9:52AM

Metea Valley junior guard Kenny Obendorf found a way to make a contribution on seemingly every play in his team's 63-52 Upstate Eight Valley win over Bartlett Saturday.

He finished the night with a game-high 17 points, hitting two three-pointers and shooting 7-of-9 at the free-throw line.

"It's just staying in the offense," Obendorf said. "The other guys are doing a great job setting screens and finding me in the offense, setting me up with easy baskets. And I was able to get to the line tonight and get some easy points, as well."

Even on one of his rare misses at the line, teammate Milan Bojanic (six rebounds, six points off the bench) managed to corral the rebound and put it back up to give the Mustangs (9-7, 2-3) a 30-22 lead late in the first half.

Then in a fourth-quarter sequence that epitomized Metea's hustle, Obendorf grabbed the team's third offensive rebound of the possession and drew a foul on Hawks leading scorer Lance Whitaker (14 points, nine rebounds).

Obendorf sank both foul shots to stretch Metea's lead to 47-37. Later in the period, with 2:25 left, Obendorf capped his performance by sinking two more free throws to widen the Mustangs lead to 58-44. Those shots came after a technical foul was called on Bartlett's bench.

"I think we let the referees get in our head in the second half and didn't just play the game," Hawks coach Jim Wolfsmith said. "We knew (Obendorf) could hit some shots and we didn't do a good enough job closing in on him. Maybe Metea came out a little lackadaisical early in the game but they came back really aggressive after that and we weren't able to match their intensity the rest of the way."

Femi Oyewole gave the Hawks (8-10, 0-4) 12 points and 10 rebounds.

Lashawn Cargo scored 11 points, Sean Davis had 10 and Raysean Parker added eight for the Mustangs.

Bartlett started the game on a 6-0 run but faded quickly and trailed 14-8 at the end of the first.

"I don't know if our slow start was because of our layoff-we hadn't played since (Dec.) 27-but we just grinded it out with our defense, got some big stops, and starting getting out on the floor and getting some easy looks," Mustangs coach Bob Vozza said.

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