High school picks with Alex Guest // Bill Bender replay from Wednesday // Saban poo-poos 24 team playoff

Diesel (0:00)

Five o'clock on Fridays. As always, it is time to do some high school pick-ups here on Wire 2 Wire with Diesel and Cole Bryson. But why talk to Cole Bryson about Upstate picks, because, or Friday Night Picks, because Cole Bryson is getting his, you know what, handed to him by Alex Guest, who joins the show. Did you know going into the season, Alex, that you were gonna trounce Cole Bryson in the regular season Friday Night Picks?

Alex Guest (0:27)

Oh man, no clue. I had no clue at all. You know, he normally gets me, I think I only have it by like seven games right now, but he normally gets me every year. So this year has been an anomaly for sure.

Diesel (0:40)

Well, you're up on him, like you said, seven games, 206 and 52 on the year, Cole Bryson, 199 and 59 Hey, either one of those, I mean, I tell him all the time, if you want to start a little ring of gambling here, you guys could be the odds makers and the bookmakers, you know what's up here in the Upstate of South Carolina. Let's get going on some high school picks, shall we? Week number 12, here we are, regular season is done and we're in the playoffs, and you and Cole are split on this game number one, right out of the gate, and I can't fathom for the life of me why at this point, Rock Hill is at Boiling Springs, it's a 9-8 matchup, Rock Hill got trounced by Northwestern, but everybody's getting trounced by Northwestern.

Cole's got Rock Hill taking this one, and who do you like?

Alex Guest (1:32)

Yeah, you know, I like Boiling Springs here, Diesel. You know, this to me is just a classic, you know, clash of playoff survival, I think.

Rock Hill had a really good start to their season, and then they ended up, I think, on like their third string quarterback, so I'm not really sure why Cole's picking Rock Hill here. I figured he'd go with his Bulldogs, you know, he's a Bullings Springs alum, but I think maybe he's looking at maybe their overall athleticism, their ability to stretch the field, but I'm going with Boiling Springs here.

Diesel (2:07)

OK, next up, we're going Spartanburg at River Bluff. This is a 12-5 matchup. It's been a tough year for Spartanburg, and River Bluff seems to be pretty good.

Alex Guest (2:17)

Yeah, River Bluff's pretty good. You mentioned it, Spartanburg, they are in the playoffs, and they're lucky to be in the playoffs, you know, at a 12th seed, and had a very uncharacteristic, very tough regular season.

I'm taking River Bluff in this one. I think Spartanburg keeps it close early, but I don't think they have, you know, I think they lack the depth to be able to go four full quarters against a, just a machine like River Bluff.

Diesel (2:46)

Unfortunately, does this feel like, not just an end to the season, but maybe kind of a really disappointing end to the season, kind of a demoralizing end to the season, because like you said, River Bluff, they can put up a ton of points.

Alex Guest (3:00)

Yeah, they can. And you know, I really think they're gonna grind them down after halftime. Like I said, I think this is, I think it stays close, you know, maybe for 16 minutes of game time, maybe a quarter and a half, something like that. But yeah, I think when it's all said and done, I think those Spartanburgs, the coaching staff and the players are gonna be kind of sitting there just hoping this one gets over fast.

Diesel (3:26)

Next up we have on the Pickums, Lexington at Fort Mill. Why is Fort Mill all the way down there at a seventh seed? They had themselves a pretty good year, eight and two on the year.

Alex Guest (3:38)

Yeah, they had a really good year, but they ended up at that seventh seed because they are in that same region as Northwestern and Dorman.

So you look at their two losses, those are the two losses. They had a really good game, a really close game against Dorman, had a close win against Boiling Springs. Look, junior quarterback, Harper Love, he's got just over 2,000 yards through the air for Fort Mill. So I'm taking them over Lexington. You know, Lexington is not really in our coverage area, so we don't really have a whole heck of a lot of knowledge on what they can do, but I think when you have a quarterback like Love that has thrown the ball for over 2,000 yards so far, and that's a long drive up from Lexington to Fort Mill. So give me the yellow jacket.