WEXFORD - Simply put, Sjavante Gilliam was in the right place at the right time.

Aliquippa's 6-foot-4 junior forward grabbed a shot headed well short of the basket and laid it in just before the buzzer Saturday afternoon. The bucket capped a furious comeback and gave the Quips a 64-62 WPIAL Class AA boys basketball quarterfinal win over Freeport at North Allegheny High School.

Freeport (16-6) had an eight-point lead with three minutes remaining.

"They are tenacious," Yellowjackets coach Garrie Davies said of Aliquippa. "They came back and got us."

When Luke Westerman sank a pair of free throws with 3:05 to play, Freeport had a 57-49 lead. That was after the Yellowjackets had squandered an 11-point first-quarter lead and fell behind 47-43 in the waning moments of the third quarter.

A 12-0 run at that point gave Freeport a 55-47 edge midway through the fourth quarter. Westerman sank two treys during the spurt.

A Dave Bauman trey gave Freeport a 60-54 lead with 1:20 remaining. Bauman was playing on an injured foot that trainers had taped up twice after he tumbled on the floor midway through the third quarter.

Bauman's foot was wrapped in ice after the game and he was taken to a hospital fox X-rays.

"We could have cashed it in after that shot," Aliquippa coach Marvin Emerson said. "But these kids never quit."

Darrelle Revis converted a three-point play to cut the gap to 60-57. After Freeport's Brent Ferko sank a baseline jumper with 58 seconds to go, Dante Rawlins nailed a 3-pointer to trim the lead to 62-60 with 44 seconds left.

The Yellowjackets failed to score on their possession, but Bauman stole the ball back. A lob pass toward the basket didn't connect and Aliquippa (21-3) had the ball again.

"With any kind of a lead and less than a minute to go, we normally settle for nothing less than a lay-up," Davies said. "But Aliquippa doesn't let you hold the ball to do that.

"They are very athletic. We had to keep attacking."

Revis canned a jumper to tie the game at 62 with 12 seconds left. While trying to set his feet for a shot with 6.8 seconds to go, Bauman traveled with the ball.

Aliquippa in-bounded from under its own basket.

"We have a play called North Carolina that we normally run in a situation like that, but it takes only two or three seconds," Emerson said. "We didn't want to leave them time on the clock."

Instead, Revis took the in-bounds pass, dribbled up the floor and let loose with a jumper from inside the 3-point stripe.

The shot was well short, but Gilliam grabbed it and laid it in.

"Darrelle got off an open shot," Emerson said. "He was a little nervous and left it short.

"They pressed us full-court and I was glad they did that. It created more space and we were able to get guys to the basket for the offensive board."

"I don't know how that happened there," Davies said of Gilliam's put-back.

Aliquippa won its ninth game in a row and will meet Shenango in the semifinals. Freeport will qualify for the PIAA Tournament if Aliquippa wins its next game or Shenango wins the WPIAL title.

Revis had 25 points and 10 rebounds for the Quips. Rawlins and D'Von Jeter came off the bench to combine for 29 points and 13 rebounds.

"Those two guys owed me," Emerson said. "They've been having terrible practices lately."

Aliquippa had a 44-30 rebounding edge and forced 25 Freeport turnovers, including eight in the fourth quarter.

"We've been a man-to-man defense all year, but switched to a 1-2-2 zone the last two days to prepare for Aliquippa," Davies said. "We controlled the speed of this game. Our kids did a great job that way."

Ferko had 25 points for the Yellowjackets, 17 in the first half. Bauman added 17 points and five rebounds, Westerman 11 points and eight boards.

"I knew Freeport was that good," Emerson said. "The Class AA bracket is as good as any in the WPIAL. Put our teams against anybody in a best-of-three, one at our place, one at their place, one at a neutral site and the Class AA team would come out looking pretty good.

"Freeport played a hard-nosed game, they played with discipline, they played with class. This is what high school basketball is supposed to be."