Madison La Follette shone its brightest in one of the most hyped early-season games of the 2019-2020 high school basketball season.
It was a match-up of undefeated teams and a potential state finals preview, with La Follette rushing past defending D1 champ and second-ranked Brookfield Central 69-52 on Saturday evening at the Wisconsin Basketball Yearbook Shootout in Mequon.
Both teams, who share the Lancers nickname, entered the WBY Shootout undefeated and ranked in the top ten of the WisSports.net Coaches Poll. La Follette sat at #7, behind two other Big 8 squads (Sun Prairie and Madison East). Central was ranked #2 behind Greater Metro Conference rival Hamilton.
La Follette raced out to a 14-0 lead in the first four minutes of action, with Isaiah Stewart and David Gray combining for three three-point baskets in the opening salvo. Brookfield Central steadied the ship behind hot shooting from Ben Nau and Andrew Rohde to bring the contest within single digits for most of the rest of the first half.
In the second half, after some strong defensive play back and forth early on, La Follette steadily pulled away, answering every big Central basket with a drive and a kick or a huge basket on the offensive end. La Follette's overwhelming athleticism led to plenty of transition buckets, with the exclamation point provided in the final minutes as Dakovin Prather slammed home an alley-oop to punctuate a surprising rout of the defending state champions.
Stewart had 20 points to lead La Follette and took home the Rick Majerus Scholarship Foundation MVP of the game award. David Gray added 12 points and both Ben Probst and Derek Gray notched 11 in the win.
For Central, Nau had the game-high with 21 points before committing a technical foul late in the contest and leaving the game, while standout junior David Joplin had 13 points and Rohde added 10 for Brookfield.
The Big 1070 will carry La Follette's game against last year's state runner-up Sun Prairie on January 7.
LA FOLLETTE: Isaiah Stewart 20, David Gray 12, Ben Probst 11, Derek Gray 11, Cyrus Lashore 6, Dakovin Prather 5, Juok Riak 4
BROOKFIELD CENTRAL: Ben Nau 21, David Joplin 13, Andrew Rohde 10, Malik Abdul-Wahid 8, Eric Radisevic 5