Martin Luther King Jr. senior Azhana Maxwell is just 45 points away from the 2,000 career mark and is playing in her first state playoff game on Friday. (Photo by Ty Freeman)
Senior Azhana Maxwell has flown under the radar during her high school basketball career at Martin Luther King Jr. High School in DeKalb County.
Unless of course your team played against the Region 4-6A Co-Player of the Year who is averaging 23.1 points, 5.8 rebounds, 2.6 steals and 2.6 assists per game for the 8-20 Lady Lions who made the playoffs for the first time since the 2010 season.
She eclipsed the 1,900 career points mark this season and with 1,955 is 45 points shy of the 2,000 mark. And on top of her scoring abilities she has shown an all-around play on the court collecting 560 rebounds (5.7/gm), 212 steals (2.2/gm) and 282 assists (2.9) in her 98 games played over four seasons.
Maxwell played a pivotal role in the Lady Lions return to the playoffs scoring 24 of her team’s points in a 37-36 upset of No. 4 ranked Forest Park to clinch a state tournament bid. Forest Park had beaten King 72-30 the week prior to the tournament. She then scored 34 in a 64-61 overtime victory over perennial state playoff entry Stephenson to earn the No. 3 seed.
The Lady Lions travel to Greenbrier for a 6:00 pm Class 6A state playoff game on Friday.
The combo guard’s 1,955 career mark is the best in DeKalb over the past 15 seasons, besting the 1,554 total by Tucker’s Eryka Davenport, a 2014 Miami (FL) signee. Her 648 points this season puts her in fifth place on the girls’ most points scored in a season dating back to 1982
Martin Luther King Jr.’s Azhana Maxwll scored 271 points as a freshman in No. 23. The past three seasons she has not scored less than 503 points to climb over 1,955 for her career. (Photo by Mark Brock)
She trails Avondale’s Sherbiya Morris (791), Clarkston’s Sheletheia Lumpkin (720), Columbia’s Takisha Ward (664) and Clarkston’s Sonja Yarbrough (655).
Seventeen or more points against Greenbrier on Friday night in her first playoff game would move her into third on the list with 665.
The only other players to score more points in the last 15 seasons are four players on the boys’ side led by Miller Grove’s Mfon Udofia with 2,479 career points.
Maxwell is currently getting interest from such colleges as Western Carolina, Jacksonville University, North Carolina A&T, Florida A&M, Augusta State, Charleston Southern University, Wintrop and Lane College.