High school basketball

Late in the first half of an eventual 89-40 win over The Prairie School on Tuesday, Dominican’s Mr. Basketball finalist Aaron Womack III had every reason to look for a few quick looks at the basket.

They were two small plays in an ultimately inconsequential sequence of the runaway victory, but still showed that Womack III’s pursuit of the career scoring record is not changing who he is as a player.”Everybody on the team is unselfish, wants to see everybody succeed,” Womack III said. “We just all want to see each other succeed and that starts in practice, pushing each other, getting on each other to be able to succeed on the court.”

Girls basketball takeaways:Homestead’s big week leads off Milwaukee-area girls basketball takeawaysNeed a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.Womack III has been on a tear of late, surpassing 2,000 career points on Jan. 31 as just the 60th player in Wisconsin since 1958 to do so. One milestone remains for the senior 6-foot-6 Syracuse commit, and he covets it like a precious gem: 2015 graduate Diamond Stone’s all-time school record of 2,193 points.”He’s scored 2,000-some points in his career, but he’s unselfish to a fault,” Dominican head coach Steve Showalter said. “He will always make the extra pass, or he’ll always try to find the open guy.”Football playoff reaction:WIAA officials, area coaches react to passing of new high school football playoff processAnother impactful Friday result for conference title ramifications came in the Greater Metro Conference, as Brookfield Central beat Brookfield East, 62-42. The win moves Central to 10-2 in the conference to put it a game-and-a-half ahead of Brookfield East (9-4) and Germantown (9-4), and two games ahead of Menomonee Falls (8-4) and Wauwatosa West (8-4). The Lancers have a gauntlet ahead for them over the next two weeks to hold that lead, facing Germantown on the road this coming Friday before home dates the following Tuesday vs. Menomonee Falls and Feb. 21 vs. Wauwatosa West.Despite projecting as more of a shooting guard at the collegiate level, Womack III has at least two inches in height on every other member of his team. Showalter said therein lies another example of Womack III’s selflessness.”He could guard anybody out here, but we kind of have to play him inside and he’s not really an inside player, but you can see the block shots that he gets, you can see the assists he gets, the rebounds he gets,” Showalter said. “He’s not going to do all that stuff at the next level, but he does whatever I’ve asked him to do and he tries to do the best he can all the time.”After 30 points Tuesday, Womack III enters Monday’s game against Turner with 2,073 career points, 120 shy of tying Stone. With six regular-season games and a potential postseason run remaining, Womack III’s scoring average of 30.7 points per game suggest it is only a matter of time. In the meantime, opponents should not mistake his willingness to help other Knights shine as passivity.”My mindset is to go out and win and go kill anybody that’s in front of me. Go kill him, however many points, whatever I need to do, go get the win,” Womack III said.Here are more takeaways from the week in high school basketball.Homestead drops Slinger to end Owls’ 18-game streakSlinger’s run of 18 straight wins since a Nov. 30 season-opening loss came to an end Thursday night at home against Homestead, as the Highlanders (15-5) picked up the 74-64 road win. It was the first loss of the season at home for Slinger (18-2), which had defeated its seven previous opponents at home by an average margin of 23 points. The win was the sixth in a row for the Highlanders (11-3 in league), who have bounced back from a rough stretch in the middle of January to pull within two games of Slinger (13-1) for the North Shore Conference title. Nicolet is tied for second in the conference, with one more game between the Knights and Highlanders on the schedule for the Feb. 27 season finale. The Knights dropped a 74-69 decision at Cedarburg on Friday to fall into a tie for second.Northern Michigan commit Trevor Polite, a 6-6 guard/forward, has had an impactful senior year for the Highlanders, eclipsing 1,000 career points last Saturday with 36 in an 87-77 win over Verona. He also leads the team in rebound average (6.8) and is tied for the team lead in assists with Tommy O’Hagan (3.4).Tom Shafranski Q&A:Retiring WIAA assistant director Tom Shafranski talks about the state of high school sports in Wisconsin

The game Tuesday was already out of hand with his Knights leading 56-24 with less than a minute left in the opening half. Womack III corralled a loose ball in the paint, and while he had a makeable contested layup opportunity, dished it off to a teammate for an open layup. The ensuing inbound pass was wide and intercepted by Womack III, who again had a wide open jumper with less than 10 seconds remaining. Instead he deferred to a teammate with their feet set for the last attempt of the half.

Lake Country Lutheran takes control of Midwest Classic to highlight Friday results

The Midwest Classic Conference’s last two undefeated teams, Lake Country Lutheran and Living Word Lutheran, met Friday night to set the pecking order as the home stretch of the conference title race approaches. It was LCL taking the win at home, 71-60 over LWL. Daniel Cleary led scorers with 20 points, followed by Jake Burow’s 18 and Ethan Hans and Nate Bogdanovich each with 13. The victory moves LCL to 12-0 in the league while dropping LWL to 10-1.

“Those (59) other players put in a lot of work, and I’ve put in a lot of work too, being able to put the ball in the basket over four years. It’s hard to do to come in as a freshman and score that many points and keep progressing as the years go on,” Womack III said.