BUTLER TWP — Butler has one football win over North Allegheny in the past 21 years.

The Golden Tornado have been outscored 327-17 by the Tigers in their most recent eight meetings, getting shut out in five of those games.

And Butler (0-5, 0-3) will have to try to snap a 10-game losing streak overall without its starting quarterback and tailback when the Golden Tornado venture into Newman Stadium for a 7:30 p.m. kickoff Friday night.

“That’s the type of challenge we’re facing here now,” Butler coach Rob Densmore said. “We can’t put our heads down. We have to keep working.

“Our kids are doing that. It would be easy to quit right now, to just give up. That’s not happening. The effort is there.”

Senior quarterback Shad Stepp is out indefinitely with a knee injury and tailback Damien Pickett will not play Friday because of a bad shoulder. Pickett has rushed for 449 yards and five touchdowns this year.

Antonio DeVaughn filled in for Pickett in last week’s 43-7 loss to Seneca Valley and ran for 66 yards and a touchdown. Densmore said Tim Vernick will get more reps at running back this week as well.

Sophomores Luke Michalek and Brandon Fleeger will both see action at quarterback Friday.

“We’re decimated by injuries at this point,” Densmore admitted. “But that’s not an excuse. We’re playing a lot of inexperienced younger kids, but they’re getting some experience now. Brandon saw his first varsity action last week.”

North Allegheny (4-1, 3-1) has won its last three games, defeating Central Catholic 24-17, Upper St. Clair 31-6 and Shaler 41-14.

The Tigers have been using a pair of quarterbacks in Ethan Maenza and Riley Trueman. They’ve combined to throw for 600 yards and six touchdowns, run for 564 yards and six scores.

“We can use both guys in a variety of ways because both are versatile,” North Allegheny coach Art Walker Jr. said. “It’s not a situation where one of these guys can throw and the other can run.

“We can really mix our packages up with both of them.”

The same can be said for the Tigers’ running game. Nick Provenzano and Michael Pope have both produced 100-yard games rushing while Maenza has compiled three 100-yard games on the ground himself.

“They use their quarterbacks like an extra running back at times,” Densmore said. “They can take the snap and just go.”

Matt Sell is the Tigers’ leading receiver with 16 catches for 345 yards and three touchdowns. Butler does not have a wide receiver with more than three catches. Scott Dietrich leads the Tornado in that regard with three catches for 82 yards.

“I have a lot of respect for Coach Densmore,” Walker said. “I coached against him for a lot of years when he was at Pine-Richland. He does a really good job technique-wise and his kids play a sound game.

“We respect their program and the last thing we’re going to do is take Butler lightly. We have to take care of our side of things — eliminate mistakes we’ve made in the past and keep getting better each week.”

North Allegheny’s offense struggled against Butler in last year’s 21-0 win, scoring only one offensive touchdown. Darrien Pickett leads the Tornado defensively this year with 25 solo tackles. Vernick has 21.

“North Allegheny us a talented team and they are big up front,” Densmore said. “We didn’t establish a running game last week and that hurt us. That needs to change.

“Defensively, we’ll try to get some turnovers to turn things our way.”

The Tornado did not lose a fumble last week, but are minus 12 in the turnover-takeaway category so far this season.

North Allegheny middle linebackers Francis Duggan and Griffin Sestili lead the team with 55 and 31 tackles, respectively. Duggan has nine tackles for loss and 4.5 sacks.

“Our defense is designed for our linebackers to make plays,” Walker said. “Our line needs to keep blockers off of them.

“If the plays are being made by guys in our secondary, things aren’t going our way.”