Yes, it was a homer prediction. Based on everything I know and everything I’ve watched in a life devoted to kids playing games, it was also the only logical pick.

Let’s just say I’ve learned my lesson the last few years. If I’m trying to make up ground on Whitehouse and the next game on my list reads “Lisbon at New England,” there’s no doubt that I will circle the Greyhounds.

Even if they don’t have a cop confiscating video cameras at the gate.

The longest high school football streak in the state ended over the weekend when Boothbay, protecting its home turf with a fistful of seniors, lowered the boom on Lisbon, 40-13.

After 23 games, Lisbon was ripe for the pummeling. Almost every player responsible for 21 of those consecutive victories is enrolled in college, earning a living or defending his country.

Life waits for nobody, not even the biggest little football program in the state, and you don’t replace 235-pound men with 130-pound high school juniors without painful repercussions in the here and now.

Armed with all that information and the good, old-fashioned Law of Averages, I still wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t watched it.

Lisbon’s winning streak deserves a better obituary than the one I cobbled together in 20 fitful minutes on deadline Friday night.

It’s not normative to the high school pigskin experience. Teams don’t just restock the cupboard and roll through a three-month season, making it look easier than it did the first time. Lawrence and Mountain Valley might emerge as Exhibit A and Exhibit B to the contrary, but wait until the Saturday before Thanksgiving and get back to me on that one, OK?

Not to mention that if Billy Bob Thornton’s alter ego dropped in from Odessa, visited every school and ranked the teams in Maine by first impression, he’d peg Lisbon ninth in the 10-team Class C division of the Campbell Conference. If he got through the weight room facility and that infamous broom closet of a gymnasium without giggling and guffawing.

Sure, there were two Division I caliber athletes involved in that unimaginable run. Levi Ervin is roaming the secondary and knocking people into next week at the University of Maine. Elijah Trefts forsook a similar path and will probably become an orthopedic surgeon or something of that nature because of it.

But there were also a bunch of 145-pound pulling guards and 5-foot-6 wide receivers who looked like they escaped from Odyssey of the Mind practice. With a little coaching and an oversized heart, they achieved miles beyond the sum of the parts.

The Streak shouldn’t subside without another unsolicited testimonial on behalf of unassuming head coach Dick Mynahan. Nobody, of course, would shy away from accepting it more.

Mynahan inherited the top job at Lisbon before any of his current players were born and made his mark as an assistant long before that.

Somehow he’s been above the parental baloney and player ego trips that bring down nearly every other coach in every other sport. I suppose that’s because anyone who criticizes Mynahan’s knowledge of the game or goodness as a human being immediately identifies himself as an idiot.

I have only one son. He doesn’t live in Lisbon or Lisbon Falls, and he appears cursed with his dad’s devastating lack of athleticism. But I would be honored and privileged to have him play for Coach Mynahan, who approaches the game with the same dignity and decency before and after every game, win or lose.

Win, mostly.

Here’s one more hooray for him and the ‘Hounds. From start to finish, your two-year hammerlock on Class C was a joy to watch.

Even when it cost me a game in the standings.