BUTLERTWP— Seven weeks ago, Butler football coach Garry Cathell never thought he'd be doing this.

But now he's crunching the numbers to see what the Golden Tornado's chances are of securing the wild-card berth in the WPIALClass AAAA playoffs.

Now unable to finish among the top four in the Northern Five, Butler (2-5, 0-3) is left to battle seven other teams for the final postseason spot.

"Erie McDowell has to finish among the top four in our section now, so that wild card comes into play," Cathell said. "If we can find a way to upset North Allegheny, we could be in pretty good shape."

The Tornado travel to North Allegheny (5-2, 3-0) for a 7:30 p.m. kickoff Friday. Entering this weekend's action, Seneca Valley (3-4) has the best record among the eight Quad-A teams currently out of playoff position. Latrobe is the only one of the eight with a section win.

The first tiebreaker is head-to-head competition and Butler closes the regular season by hosting Seneca Valley.

"The Gardner points we get from beating (4-3) Kiski (Area), which is already in the playoffs, then by beating North Allegheny, would bode well for us,"Cathell said.

But Butler must find a way to knock off the Tigers on the road. While the Tornado have dropped four straight, North Allegheny has won three consecutive Northern Five games, defeating Seneca Valley, McDowell and Shaler by a combined 69-16 margin.

The Tigers do have an injury problem at the quarterback position, but they have been very successful at running the football.

"We've got to stop their run,"Cathell said. "We did a good job against North Hills' running game in the first half last week, we contained McDowell's ground game — it's not like we can't do it.

"Clearly, we need to come up big Friday night. And we have to stop the big play."

Butler will play without receiver Andy Strutt, who dislocated a hip last Friday at North Hills and is done for the season. He is expected to be fully recovered for track and field season in the spring.

Ian Haley, who returned from a knee injury last week, will see more time at receiver and joins Jordan Roycroft and Adam Zaccari at that position.

Roycroft is playing with a flak jacket on sore ribs. Zaccari had five catches for 80 yards against North Hills.

"Adam has come up big when we've needed him,"Cathell said. "We originally got word from the doctor last week that Jordan's ribs were cracked and he'd be done for six weeks.

"After further examination, he was cleared to play after getting through two of our most intense practices of the year here. That's how tough a kid Jordan is and it shows the type of kid we have in the program."

Despite the four-game slide and disappointing record, Cathell said his players have not given up.

"They've worked too hard for that," he said. "They're not selling the coaching staff out and they're not selling themselves out. They're working as hard as ever."

Nick Monteleone has thrown for more than 1,000 yards this year, including 151 in the second half last week, for the third straight season.

Ben Ashcraft, Aaron Dorondo and Cameron McDonald-Cahill will comprise the backfield this week.

"Cameron's had some time to get healthy and he'll play a little more,"Cathell said.

Butler's senior class has won only seven of 27 games at the varsity level.

"We're competitive and these kids are good football players,"Cathell said. "But do they know how to win? They were playing varsity ball as sophomores.

"Our current sophomores are 3-1 and just lost a 28-27 decision to McKeesport because we went for two points at the end and didn't get it. Other teams are canceling sophomore games, we're trying to schedule more.

"Playing varsity all this time has helped our current seniors. They're better players because of it and I know we're a better team than we were last year. But we didn't let them naturally progress as high school players. Maybe that hurt us in the long run,"Cathell added.