Years ago, in my other incarnation as a sports writer, the powers that be had me do a weekly picks column.

Every week, I was obliged to look at the schedule of games and predict, not only which team I thought would win, but by how much.

I hated every minute of it.

People get pretty mad when you say you think a team is going to lose. They get even madder if you say they’re going to lose by a substantial margin.

Coaches love it, though.  They used it for bulletin board material, telling their teams, “See? Even the paper thinks you’re going to lose.”

Of course, some of them used to call and ask me to pick their teams to lose so they could do that.

Their fans, however, not so much.

I got letters and nasty comments on some message boards where people questioned my sanity, my intelligence and my education.

That’s one reason why I no longer do a picks column (even though, for the record, my picks tally total over seven seasons was 379-87).

The other reason is nights like Friday.

I would have gotten those picks totally wrong.

Oh, I figured Riverside Academy would handle its road trip to Monroe just fine and take care of Ouachita Christian with no problem. And they did, winning 48-17.

It did take them a little while to get going, like they did against Sacred Heart, but they figured things out eventually.

St. Charles Catholic and West St. John, on the other hand, surprised me a little

When I stand on the sideline at St. Charles, I can’t always see the action on the field because I’m so short.

But I don’t see a big, mammoth football team filled with star players.

I do see a bunch of average sized guys who play hard and do what they have to do to win, and a coach who squeezes every once of talent he can out of them.

There is a lot of energy on that sideline, that’s for sure.

St. Charles did everything it had to do Friday night against Calvary Baptist.

This was a team that came to LaPlace after scoring 56 points the week before, with a quarterback who passed for 290 yards and four touchdowns and a running back who ran for four touchdowns.

They scored no touchdowns in LaPlace. None.

As my grandnephew, Carson, likes to say, “I didn’t see that coming.”

I really figured the Comets had met their match against Calvary and would be having an unhappy holiday week.

My bad.

Nor did I see West St. John’s 65-37 victory over South Plaquemines coming.

It’s been a rough year for the Rams, who finished the regular season with a record of 3-7, with lopsided losses to their fellows in St. John Parish.

That earned them a No. 24 seed in the Class 2A bracket.

Maybe coach Brandon Walters just doesn’t tell them that part about them being a lower seed playing a higher seed.

Just as they did last year as the No. 17 seed, the Rams have gone on a post-season tear, knocking off No. 9 East Feliciana, 25-12, then No. 8 South Plaquemines.

Maybe some weren’t so stunned that West St. John beat the Hurricanes, but they had to be a little surprised at the score — 65-37.

That’s more points than the Rams scored in their last three games of the regular season, and they came after WSJH trailed 21-0 in the first quarter.

It was a surprise to me if not to the Rams.

“That was fun,” Walters said, breathlessly, after the game.

“It was just how we planned it,” Walters joked. “We drew it up just like that.”

Lori Lyons is sports editor at L’OBSERVATEUR. She can be reached at 985-652-9545 or lori.lyons@lobservateur.com.