Heads or tails, it was a coin toss for the ages.

The final Monaca-Rochester game was played Saturday night and Rochester cruised to a 28-0 victory. Earlier in the day, the coin toss had both communities taking the bridge.

Since 1988, the winner of the game between the two schools gets naming rights to the bridge that connects the two towns. If Rochester wins, the sign on the bridge is "Rochester-Monaca Bridge." If Monaca wins, the sign reads "Monaca-Rochester Bridge."

But Monaca and Center are merging to form Central Valley High School. So officials at Rochester and Monaca decided to have the coin toss Saturday morning -- on the bridge.

"It was very nostalgic," WPIAL executive director Tim O'Malley said.

O'Malley wears many hats as the WPIAL boss, but never before had he walked to a center of a bridge for a ceremonial starting of a game. He threw the coin into the air. This had to be a first for a WPIAL football game -- a coin toss over the Ohio River.

Police stopped traffic at both ends of the bridge.

"Then the four captains from Monaca came up the bridge from the Monaca side, and the four from Rochester came walking up from the Rochester side," O'Malley said. "It was something to see. You should've seen how many people from the two communities were there. It was pretty neat. This is two small communities and this game is important to them. They take a lot of pride in it."

By the way, Monaca won the toss.

Hopewell High School sophomore Rushel Shell has a chance to someday break the WPIAL all-time rushing record. But he already is in the record book after Friday night.

Shell rushed for 288 yards on 20 attempts and is believed to be only the third running back in WPIAL history to rush for 2,000 yards in the regular season. Shell had 2,043 yards. The only other two known to have rushed for 2,000 in the regular season were Laurel Highlands' Jim Smith, who had 2,026 in 1989, and Mars' Bill Bair, who had 2,112 in 2007.

What's interesting is Shell's yards-per-carry average is higher than Smith and Bair. Shell's average is 10.6 yards. Bair averaged 9.6 and Smith 6.6. Plus, Smith had a 10-game regular season in 1989, while Shell and Bair had nine-game regular seasons.

"It means a lot if only two other people had done it. I didn't know that," Shell said. "The [offensive] linemen were talking to me about it before the game. They said 'You're going to get 2,000 today. Be ready to run.'"

Shell might be running his way into WPIAL lore. He is now more than 100 yards ahead of the pace of WPIAL record-holder Mike Vernillo. Shell has 3,559 career yards (in 20 games). Vernillo, a 2000 Fort Cherry graduate, had 3,454 yards after 20 games in his career. Vernillo finished with 7,646 yards.

Hopewell begins the playoffs Friday.

"We feel different about the playoffs this year," said Shell, whose team lost to Thomas Jefferson in the quarterfinals a year ago. "We feel like, on our side of the bracket, we're going to be the team everyone wants to knock off, instead of last year when everyone wanted to knock off TJ."

Thomas Jefferson and Hopewell are both 9-0 and the only undefeated teams in WPIAL Class AAA.

The WPIAL announces playoff pairings and seedings at 7 tonight. The No. 1 seeds in three of the classes seem easy. It most likely will be Gateway in Class AAAA, Thomas Jefferson in Class AAA and Rochester in Class A. But it will be interesting to see who is No. 1 in Class AA between unbeatens South Fayette and Mount Pleasant.

• Lancaster Catholic's Kyle Smith set a record for touchdown passes in a career when he threw five against Anville-Cleona Friday. Smith has 99 career touchdown passes, breaking the record of 94, set by former Manheim Township quarterback Pat Bostick, who is at Pitt.

• The Gateway-McKeesport game Friday night was so big it brought out two Pitt players -- Cam Saddler and Dion Lewis, who watched from the sideline. Saddler is a Gateway graduate.

• Clairton is the No. 3 scoring team in the state (47.6 points) and the No. 2 defensive team (4.2 points). Rochester is No. 1 in defense (3.7) and Portage No. 1 in offense (49.9).

Mike White's "High School Sports Edition" videos are featured exclusively on PG+, a members-only web site from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.