beat pete: Can you 'Beat Pete' in our pick 'em contest? Knowing the Lincoln vs. Tecumseh winner will help

Good for Whitmore Lake, and good for Harold Rock, Michael Lange, Luai Alzoubi and Terrance North, the four people who “Beat Pete” and were perfect in their picks.

For the record, picks in the Manchester vs. Vandercook Lake game were not counted because a typo by yours truly may have skewed readers’ picks. I stated that Manchester was 1-28 all-time against the Jayhawks and the opposite is true. The Flying Dutch’s win on Friday made them 29-1 all-time in the series.

My bad, but with the Whitmore Lake result, it didn’t make a difference in the outcome.

On to this week’s slate where divisional play in the Southeastern Conference begins. In the White Division, Lincoln and Tecumseh will play at Lincoln High School and for the first time ever both teams are 3-0 at the same time.

Just two years ago, these teams didn’t have three wins between them as Tecumseh suffered through its second of three straight 2-7 seasons and Lincoln was winless for the fourth time since 2005.

But under second-year coach Al Romano, Tecumseh is 3-0 for the first time since 2001 and Lincoln is proving that its 2011 trip to the playoffs was no flash in the pan.

Tecumseh’s start may come as a surprise to some, but not Lincoln coach Chris Westfall.

“Al Romano’s a fantastic coach,” Westfall said. “We expected it out of them and we expected it out of ourselves, so it’s not surprising.”

Westfall said he’s had no trouble convincing his team of the legitimacy of Tecumseh’s resurgence

“It’s easy to convince the kids (Tecumseh’s for real) because we just went through the same transformation,” Westfall said. “We don’t have to convince them that Tecumseh can do the same thing. They know.”

Key to Lincoln’s success against Tecumseh will be limiting senior quarterback Ben Dreslinski, who has proved dangerous with his arm and legs in the early part of the season. Similar to Tecumseh’s resurgence in 2000 when former Skyline head coach Randy Hutchison came in as head coach and brought his son, Randy Hutchison Jr., with him, Tecumseh is thriving with a new head coach and transfer quarterback. Dreslinski was at Clinton for the first three years of his high school career.

Much like Hutchison Jr. proved his skill at Onsted transferred to skill at Tecumseh, Dreslinski is showing his success at Clinton wasn’t just due to playing against smaller schools.

“He’s the real deal,” said Wesfall of Dreslinski, who has received a preferred walk-on offer at South Carolina and drawn the interest from several other Division I programs.

But will he be able to move the chains against that Lincoln defense? The game leads off this week’s picks.

Beat Pete Winners

The following people "Beat Pete" last week:

Harold Rock
Michael Lange
Luai Alzoubi
Terrance North

People who have “Beat Pete” so far: This week: 4; Overall: 72.

Pete’s overall picks record: 27-5 (.844); Last week: 10-1 (.909)

Pete Cunningham covers sports for AnnArbor.com.