The first week of the Carder Motors Playoff Payoff Pick’em contest was nothing but high school games, which seemed to cause trouble for many in the field of more than 200 entrants. However, it didn’t faze Landis Smith.

 

Smith was the sole winner of the event with a 15-3 mark, which meant a blind draw was not needed to break any tiebreakers. Thanks to the prep picking skills, Smith takes home the weekly prize, which is a gift certificate from Mountaineer World that is situated just off Interstate 79 and below the Meadowbrook Mall as part of the Shops of Benny’s Place. Smith needs to contact Hannah Cantrell by emailing hannah@connect-bridgeport.com to claim the prize. Cantrell will then get in touch with Smith no later than Monday of next week, but likely prior to that.

 

While there was one person at the top, there were logjams rounding out the top 25 this week, starting with a four-way tie for second play. Todd Shmigalsky, James Snider, Julie Minnocci and Scott Schield all finished 14-4 on the week.

 

The rest of the top 25 saw an even larger group of individuals knotted up with the same mark, which included last year’s defending champion Kevin Carbacio. Along with Carbacio, the group that finishes out the top 25 includes Jeff Wright, Louis Aragona, Rich Bailey, Brian Cain, Judy Marshall, Lenora Montgomery, A.J. DeFazio, Chris Skidmore, Mike Lhotsky, Curtis Marozzi, Ryan Chandler, Dwight Bullough, Matt Duez, Aaron Mann, Eric Stoneking, Chris Bowman, Doug Comer, Jason Hanshaw, Brandi Herron, Gilbert Kelley, Henry McDaniel, Mike Ridgway, Jason Hartman, Zachary Markley, Stephen Burnside, Jim Gerst, and Eric Carpenter.

 

Those individuals are the early frontrunners for the overall prizes for the top three finishers. This year's overall winner will have the choice of an overnight golf package at the Lakeview Resort in Monongalia County. Along with the overnight stay, this prize also includes two rounds of golf with a cart, dinner and breakfast. Other prizes include an assortment of area gift cards, which currently include gift certificates to Mia Margherita and Meagher’s Irish Pub, both located at Charles Pointe. Once again, there will be a $500 gift card from the Meadowbrook Mall up for grabs

 

For those that had a bad week, or for individuals looking to participate for the first time but think it’s going to cost them in their chance to land one of those prize slots, it’s not a problem. Just as the first three years, the worst two weeks of the picks will be eliminated from the final standings. What that means is that if you missed the first week, it will not count as long as you pick the remainder of the weeks – and you can still miss another full week and have that not count as well.

 

How do you get involved? If you are registered on Connect-Bridgeport.com, you can pick immediately. If you are not registered go to the top of the page at www.connect-bridgeport.com and click on the "Sign Up" icon on the top right hand side of the home page. Once registered, you are free to pick.

 

Even if you begin picking after the first two weeks, you will still be eligible for weekly prizes that will be announced. Each week, a story will detail the weekly winners as well as the overall leaders for the prizes. This year, the weekly winner will receive a gift card to either Mountaineer World or Mountaineer Grille (depending on the week). In the event of a tie, the winner will be chosen by a blind draw by a staff member working at the Benedum Civic Center.

 

Individuals can make their picks for Friday’s games and can change them until 6 p.m. Friday. Games that are listed on Saturday and Sunday can be entered and changed as many times as necessary until 11 a.m. each day of the picks. This week will begin college games on the Pick’em competition.

 

Unfortunately, there are occasional schedule changes - usually on the prep football side - that staff does not catch; usually games moved to Thursday. There are also occasional mistakes with the proper teams playing each other. As has been the case in the past, each person will either be given a win for those games when there are schedule changes we miss or a mistake on our end or a or they will simply not be counted for the weekly and final standings.

 

This week, the Riverside-Capital game was eliminated due to it being played on Thursday. Also, the Preston and Hampshire game was eliminated as the wrong team was designated as the home team.