BUTLER TWP— Jeff McAnallen is no stranger to the former Quad North, now known as the Northern Six football conference.

The second-year Butler head coach served as an assistant at North Hills for a number of years before returning to his alma mater.

"I've been around long enough to know that most of the games in this league are decided by two, three or four plays,"McAnallen said.

He cited last week's 37-20 loss at Shaler as a prime example. The Golden Tornado lost two fumbles inside their own 25-yard line and surrendered a pair of touchdowns on kickoff returns.

"Those mistakes cost us the game,"McAnallen said. "We had a handful of them down there."

Butler (3-2, 0-1) hosts conference newcomer Pine-Richland (1-4, 0-1) at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Art Bernardi Stadium for homecoming.

The Rams are coming off a 22-21 loss to North Hills, a game they led 14-0 entering the fourth quarter.

"You can't make mistakes in key situations,"McAnallen said. "Both of us did that last week."

Butler entered the Shaler game with a plus-8 in turnover-takeaway margin, forcing 12 turnovers in its first four games. Shaler did not turn the ball over last Friday, however.

McAnallen isn't treating last week's performance as an aberration. In fact, he's focusing on protecting the football and not allowing big plays this week.

"We'll address it all week," he said. "We can't let that kind of stuff happen. We've already made some personnel changes on special teams."

One bright spot last week was the emergence of the Tornado passing game. Cole Harvey threw for 178 yards, completing 18 of 32 passes, while Eli Christy had seven catches for 112 yards, including a 36-yard touchdown reception.

Christos Klutinoty led the ground game with 62 yards, but Butler had to abandon it when the Tornado fell behind by a large margin.

"We threw well and we know we're capable of throwing well, but our game is not putting the ball in the air 25 or 30 times,"McAnallen said. "We need to control the game on the ground.

"Eli Christy has so much athletic ability. He's one of the few kids who doesn't come off the field for us."

Christy is now Butler's leading rusher with 221 yards and leading receiver with 135 yards. Tony Fudoli (215 yards) and Klutinoty (207) have also rushed for more than 200 yards, while Harvey has 158 yards on the ground.

Defensively, T.J. Lesniewski has 54 tackles — 16 solo — to lead the team. He has three of Butler's seven sacks as well.

Jordan Emrick leads the Tornado with five tackles for loss and Fudoli has caused three fumbles, recovered one and has an interception. Josh Reddick has three interceptions.

Butler will enter the Pine-Richland game with no one expected to miss the contest due to injury.

"They have two very good running backs in (Mitch)Elliot and (Ian)Hennessy,"McAnallen said. "They have all of the athletes in that school on the football team and they've enjoyed plenty of success over the years.

"I doubt they'll be intimidated at all about playing a Quad-A schedule. That's a program that's played in state championship games. They're not going to be worried about coming up here to play us."

Pine-Richland lost starting quarterback Vinny Nittoli to a broken ankle in the first game of the season. His replacement, 6-foot-4 junior Eric Kordenbrock, has thrown for more than 100 yards in three games.

"They've had plenty of time to adapt and move on,"McAnallen said. "This is a critical game for both teams."