For Monessen senior sprinter Tarelle Irwin, the reality of what possibly could happen hit him yesterday -- before he even put his track shoes on at the WPIAL Class AA track and field championships at Baldwin.

"When we pulled up, and I got off the bus I had a good feeling," Irwin said. "I thought to myself, 'I'm getting this done, I'm winning the 100 and 200 and no one is going to stop me.' "

Try as they might, no one stopped Irwin.

And, that feeling on the bus turned from quiet confidence to an undeniable reality, as he earned the gold medal in the 100-meter dash in 11.14 seconds and his second consecutive 200-meter WPIAL title, finishing in 22.56.

"He's everything you want in a young man," said Monessen coach Ramont Small, who was a standout football player and track star at Ringgold in the late 1980s and won two WPIAL titles in the 200. "He worked so hard to get better, especially on his starts. Now, he will open the newspaper and see his name and that he won the 100 and 200. That is really something for him."

Union senior Cameron Lewis stood tallest among female competitors, winning three gold medals -- she won the 200 (26.47), set a meet record in the triple jump at 39 feet, 4Â 3/4 inches and captured long jump gold (18-7Â 3/4).

The top five finishers in each event and those who finished in the top eight and came in below the qualifying standard, secured spots at the PIAA meet May 22-23 at Shippensburg University.

If the Baldwin Invitational two weeks ago served as a coming-out-party for lanky 6-foot-2, 158-pound Clairton freshman Trenton Coles, his performance yesterday validated his force -- and that just maybe he could be one of the premier performers for a few years.

Coles won the 400 in 49.47 seconds, edging Serra's Randall Coleman (49.74). Coles is the son of former Thomas Jefferson standout Marla Puryear, one of the greatest sprinters in WPIAL history who still holds the WPIAL girls' 100 record at 11.2 seconds, which she ran in 1989. On top of that, Coles' grandfather is Norman Jones, a 1971 Clairton graduate who was one of the swiftest sprinters in his day.

Some pressure-filled bloodlines, huh?

"I hear a lot about both of them," Coles said. "I just look at it like it pushes me to do better, I just go out there and I do my best, I go out there and just tell myself that I should win."

Seems that's the same thing senior Brentwood 800-meter runner Maggie Wissler has been telling herself the past three years. She won the event for the third consecutive time, winning by more than two seconds, in 2:16.91.

Quaker Valley male distance star Omar Hyjek, a junior, constructed quite a meet, winning the 1,600 (4:33.14) and the 3,200 (9:39.45).

Freedom senior Ashley Adams again was the elite thrower. She claimed her second consecutive titles in the discus and shot put, easily besting her nearest competitor in both events. It was in the discus where Adams turned in, perhaps, the meet's most impressive performance, unleashing an effort of 157Â 1/2 feet. That mark annihilated the previous record of 133-8, set by Brentwood's Peri Jude Radecic in 1977.

Adams relished in her victory, as the Class AA competition was shifted from its former home of South Side Beaver to Baldwin this year and ran congruent with the Class AAA championship, drawing a tremendous crowd even with the intermittent rain.

"It was a different view, even though I was at the top [of the podium] again," Adams said.