Gateway is looking for a rematch. Butler is looking for a way to match up.

The ninth-seeded Golden Tornado (14-9) take on the fourth-seeded Gators (20-4) in a WPIAL Class AAAA boys basketball semifinal at 8 p.m. Wednesday at North Allegheny High School.

Mount Lebanon faces Chartiers Valley in the other semifinal. The two winners meet for the WPIAL title Saturday at Duquesne University's Palumbo Center.

Mount Lebanon defeated Gateway, 57-51, in the WPIAL Quad-A championship game last year.

Gateway has six players who are at least 6-feet-4, including 6-10 junior forward Barnett Harris, 6-6 junior guard Tyler Scott, 6-7 senior forward Devon Cottrell and 6-5 sophomore guard-forward Luke Kochka.

Senior guard Michael Corbett and sophomore guard D.J. Boyce are the other two who will see the bulk of the playing time.

“We've been watering the crop pretty good here over the last five years,” Gateway coach Mitch Adams said jokingly.

Matching up with the Gators is no laughing matter.

“Most high school teams are lucky if they have one kid 6-5 or taller,” Butler coach Matt Clement said. “This team not only has size, these are extremely talented players.

“Eyeball our two teams on the court and it looks like we don't stand a chance. We'll still show up and we'll be ready to play,” he added.

Gateway's size will be a challenge for Butler forward Bobby Swartwout, a 6-6 senior averaging 15 points per game who has been stellar inside over the past few weeks. Point guard Nate Snodgrass averages 10.6 points per game. Cody Herald hit 32 3-pointers and Snodgrass 23 during the regular season.

The Gators have won five straight games and trailed Upper St. Clair by nine points with three minutes left in regulation Saturday before rallying for a 65-61 overtime victory.

Scott averages 21 points per game while Cottrell nets 18. Cottrell blocks seven shots per game, Harris four and Scott two.

“Our goal is to block at least 10 shots per game,” Adams said.

The coach described a dunk by Scott as providing the catalyst needed to come back against Upper St. Clair.

“He weaved through a number of players and finished the play with a dunk,” Adams said. “It was the kind of play that can ignite a team. Tyler makes that type of play.”

Clement concurred.

“The Scott kid is the best high school player I've seen in my two years of coaching,” he said. “He was as good as anybody I saw when I was playing high school ball.”

Clement described Harris as “a long 6-10” who can disrupt plays inside.

Gateway can shoot from outside as well as control play inside.

“Scott never met a shot he didn't like, and Kochka is our most accurate 3-point shooter,” Adams said.

Scott, Harris and Cottrell started for the Gators' WPIAL runner-up team last season. Gateway has put together consecutive 20-win seasons under sixth-year coach Adams.

The year before Adams took over, the Gators were 2-22. They endured two more losing seasons before the program turned around.

“Butler has some great athletes and Matt has done a great job with that program,” Adams said. “He's put together a sound, disciplined team.”

Butler is bidding to return to the WPIAL finals for the first time since 2000, when it lost to Penn Hills. That also was the last year the Tornado had won a playoff game.