North Allegheny coach Dave DeGregorio emerged from his team's locker room after Saturday afternoon's game with a wide grin.

"That," DeGregorio said to reporters, "was a lot of fun."

A basketball season at North Allegheny has never been this much fun.

The best season in North Allegheny history just got a little better. North Allegheny, which had never made it past the second round of the PIAA playoffs, knocked off Gateway, 64-52, in a Class AAAA quarterfinal game Saturday at Chartiers Valley.

The win avenged a loss to Gateway (20-6) in the WPIAL semifinals and put North Allegheny (23-5) into the PIAA semifinals against Plymouth-Whitemarsh, a strong Philadelphia-area team that defeated Roman Catholic, 54-46, in another quarterfinal.

North Allegheny will most certainly be an underdog in the semifinals, but in successive games it has beaten Mt. Lebanon and Gateway, two teams that played in the WPIAL final and two teams that were much bigger and stronger than the Tigers.

"I thought my kids competed at just a tremendously high level and that's so much fun to see," DeGregorio said. "To see your kids play like that, and that hard?"

DeGregorio didn't finish the thought, but didn't need to because you get the drift. This is a North Allegheny team where every starter was only a junior varsity player a year ago.

"It's quite an achievement to do this," said Ryan Besonson, a senior forward who led North Allegheny with 15 points.

"People didn't think we could go this far. ... The players and coaches had some expectations at the beginning of the year, but I think a lot of people thought it would be like a junior varsity team this year because we didn't have any experience."

But don't get the idea that this team doesn't have talent. It does. But the Tigers don't have much size, at least compared to Gateway. And North Allegheny didn't have as much speed or quickness as Gateway.

North Allegheny, though, played its usual hard-nosed, full-court, trapping defense that gave Gateway problems and produced 21 turnovers.

And North Allegheny's "dribble-drive" offense was effective, too. After a 1-for-11 start from 3-point range, North Allegheny made six 3-pointers in the next two quarters to seize control. North Allegheny was 14 of 19 from the free-throw line in the fourth quarter.

North Allegheny led, 40-36, after three quarters. Gateway sliced the margin to 46-44 with 4:41 left, but had four turnovers and five missed shots in the final 4:30.

"What we had to do was take care of the ball, and we didn't take care of the ball today," Gateway coach Mitch Adams said.

Anton Constantino added 13 points for North Allegheny, North Allegheny attempted 30 3-pointers. Sophomore guard Tyler Scott led Gateway with 18 points.

This was far different than the semifinals when Gateway blocked 19 North Allegheny shots. This time, North Allegheny basically put all five players outside the 3-point line and made Gateway's shot blockers come away from the basket.

"On defense, we face-guarded them more and pushed so much harder than the last time," DeGregorio said. "That was the big difference."

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