By Dave Hart
LocalSportsJournal.com

Winning week in and week out never gets old.

For the second straight week, I prevailed in the LSJ “Last Man Standing” gridiron playoff picks competition.

And for the second straight week, my skill in guessing the total number of points in games helped me squeak out the victory.

Mitch Boatman and I actually tied for first place with sparkling 12-2 records. The tie-breaker was total points scored in the Montague-Clare game, which turned out to be 57. I guessed 62, Boatman was not that close, so I won again!

Of course Boatman and I are still in the competition, along with Nate Thompson, Steve Gunn and Jason Goorman. The same can’t be said for our colleague Aaron Poling, who was the first to be eliminated after Week 1 of the playoffs, and now my friend and longtime colleague Andrew Johnson, who got bounced after finishing dead last this week with a lackluster 10-4 record.

It looks like I get the last word, and last laugh, on this one, AJ!

Someone else will get cut after this week’s games. Next week we will be down to four pickers for regionals, then three for the state semifinals. The final two pickers will go head-to-head for the LJS championship on state finals week.

This week, I like Mona Shores, Muskegon, Whitehall and Oakridge to win their playoff games and district trophies and advance to regionals.

In the big showdown of the weekend – Montague at Muskegon Catholic in a Division 6 district championship game – I believe the Wildcats are more battle-tested and will be the team to survive and play another day.

It looks as though my colleagues have mostly the same picks for the high school games. That’s not shocking, since two of our local teams – Mona Shores and Oakridge – are hosting Cinderella teams that weren’t expected to make it this far into the playoffs.

We start to disagree when it comes to the college and pro games on the grid below. So how the Lions and Wolverines do this weekend will go a long way toward determining next week’s winner, and who gets eliminated.

I picked both Detroit and Michigan to win! How do you like my chances now?

WEEK 2 RESULTS – Dave Hart 12-2, Mitch Boatman 12-2, Nate Thompson 11-3, Steve Gunn 11-3, Jason Goorman 11-3, Andrew Johnson 10-4.