The Washington & Jefferson locker room was no different than during any other game this season, although the Presidents were trailing for the first time.

"No emotional halftime speeches," coach Mike Sirianni said.

Senior running back Kevin Mathews said, "We're not used to that. You can't get too hard on yourselves because then you can start fighting with each other. We knew we had to step it up."

W&J, which had handily won its first seven games, rallied from a 14-7 halftime deficit to defeat Waynesburg, 22-21, in a battle of unbeaten nationally ranked teams from the Presidents' Athletic Conference before 4,050 yesterday at Wiley Stadium.

No. 7 W&J (8-0, 4-0) took over first place in the league and moved a step closer to winning the championship and earning the automatic bid to the NCAA Division III playoffs. No. 21 Waynesburg (7-1, 4-1) most likely will have to win its remaining games against Geneva and Westminster to receive an at-large bid.

The only time the PAC sent two teams to the playoffs was 2004, with W&J and Thiel receiving at-large bids because the PAC champion didn't get an automatic bid.

"At halftime, I told our kids you want to play in big games like this," Sirianni said. "This should be fun for you. You shouldn't be playing uptight. There's a lot of pressure at W&J to uphold our tradition."

Sirianni paused for emphasis before adding, "Give Waynesburg credit, they had the two best players on the field with No. 29 [defensive lineman Mike Czerwien] and No. 3 [running back Robert Heller]."

Czerwien, a 5-foot-8, 225-pound senior from North Hills, spent much of the game in W&J's backfield and had three sacks and hurried quarterback Bobby Swallow's throws a number of times. Czerwien entered with 15 sacks to lead Division III. Heller, a freshman from Ringgold who entered leading Division III in rushing and scoring, set a school single-game rushing record with 289 yards on 30 carries and scored touchdowns on runs of 1 and 89 yards to give him a school-record 21 touchdowns for the season.

"It [the records] means a lot, but after a loss it doesn't feel as good," he said. "In our offense you have to be patient, sooner or later you'll break a long one. I thought I was going to get shut down, but that's the best our line has blocked all year."

W&J's defense limited Heller to 4 yards or less on 13 of his carries, but he had runs of 89, 49, 26 and 36 yards to generate most of Waynesburg's offense. The defense scored two points on a safety when lineman Jacob Bloomhuff tackled Waynesburg quarterback Kyle Kyper in the end zone to pull within 21-16 midway through the third quarter.

The Presidents took the lead for good at 22-21 on Swallow's 1-yard sneak on fourth down with 7:29 left. Waynesburg had previously stopped W&J four times on fourth-down attempts deep in its territory.

Swallow, who entered with the leading passing efficiency in Division III, was 27 of 42 for 208 yards and a 5-yard touchdown pass to David Ravida. Mathews carried 21 times for 115 yards.

"We learned our kids are resilient," Sirianni said. "We never had to battle back before."