Orlando Torres started the season buried on the Thomas Jefferson depth chart at running back. He ended the WPIAL portion of the season with one of the best running performances in recent championship history.

Torres, a 5-foot-9, 178-pound senior, rushed for 248 yards on 44 attempts as Thomas Jefferson defeated Montour, 34-0, in the Class AAA championship last night at Heinz Field.

It was the most rushing yards in a title game since Nate Stewart of Blackhawk had 262 in the 1996 AAA title game.

It also was another chapter in an improbable story.

Torres was mired somewhere between the third and fourth halfback at the start of the season. But Brian Baldridge, a 1,000-yard rusher last year, was lost for the season with a knee injury in the first game.

Torres got some chances to run the ball after Baldridge was hurt, but Torres was still averaging only five carries through the first seven games. Arthur James, meanwhile, became the feature back.

But Thomas Jefferson coaches decided late in the season to give Torres a chance at being a bigger part of the offense. And he responded.

"It was just a feeling," Thomas Jefferson coach Bill Cherpak said of the change.

"It wasn't anything that Arthur didn't do. We just liked [Torres'] power running."

In the first eight games, Torres had 332 yards rushing. In the past five, he has 802.

"We tell our kids all the time that it doesn't matter where you are [on the depth chart], you have to be ready because you never know when it's going to be your time," Cherpak said. "Most of the kids say, 'Yeah right, coach.' But he's a great example of someone who was ready."

In the stands

The attendance for the four championship games was 24,500.

"We were happy with the crowd, in spite of the fact that it was cold, and for the first time all year we had some weather move in," said WPIAL executive director Tim O'Malley.

Put me in, coach

Jeannette was pummeling Beaver Falls in the Class AA championship, 61-12, and quarterback Terrelle Pryor already had been taken out of the game.

When a reporter informed Pryor that the Jayhawks were only three points away from the WPIAL record for championship games, Pryor told Jeannette coach Ray Reitz, who was walking past Pryor on the bench.

"Coach, one more score and we can get the record," Pryor said with a gleam in his eye, as if to say he wanted back in the game.

Reitz replied, "Yeah, you go in and get hurt, and there are probably about 12,000 people here who will want to kill me."

More record stuff

Jeannette set a record for most points in the WPIAL playoffs with 222. The Jayhawks smashed the old record of 161, set in 1999 by South Side Beaver. Jeannette also inched closer to the state record for most points in a season.

Father-son champs

Not many fathers and sons have won WPIAL championships. The Bowens became part of the elite group when Serra defeated Springdale, 10-6, in the Class A final, giving Serra coach Rich Bowen his first championship. Twenty-six years ago, Serra won a WPIAL title when Bowen's father, Dick Bowen, was the coach. Rich Bowen, by the way, was Serra's quarterback that year.