Allderdice captures 4th straight City League boys basketball championship

By: Josh Rizzo
Sunday, February 16, 2025 | 5:46 PM

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Allderdice boys basketball coach Devin Crummie knew the shootaround wouldn’t be a picnic at UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse the day before the City League championship game. The Dragons needed to be sharp for their battle with a worthy challenger in Obama Academy.

“Everybody calls it a shootaround,” Dragons coach Devin Crummie said. “But if you ask our guys, it was more like a shoot-around premium. We were going pretty hard. There were some guys drenched.”

Allderdice used every ounce of energy it had to pick up a 59-53 win to capture its fourth straight City League crown. The Dragons (15-9) trailed by nine points, 45-36, entering the fourth quarter.

“The effort was there,” Eagles coach Naron Jackson said. “We had guys in the fourth quarter who aren’t playmakers trying to make playmaker plays. Our kids played their butts off, but we shot ourselves in the foot in the fourth quarter.”

The Eagles opened a nine-point lead in the third quarter thanks to excellent 3-point shooting from Darnell Clay. Clay shot 3 of 4 from the perimeter and finished with 11 points. Dragons forward Lukas Stead said he knew they had to be more aggressive defensively.

“We needed to press them full court and close out on their shooters,” said Stead, who finished with 15 points and 15 rebounds. “(Clay) did a nice job. We had to get deflections and make it controlled chaos for us to turn defense into offense.”

The Dragons turned transition offense into key baskets in the fourth quarter. Keith Taylor scored a team-high 16 points and had four steals and scored on a breakaway layup to tie the game at 50 with 4 minutes, 14 seconds remaining.

A layup by Stead extended the lead to 52-50, which was the Dragons’ first lead since the first quarter.

“The only thing that was going through my head was playing hard on defense,” Taylor said. “I was definitely frustrated and nervous. I came out and did my thing and made sure I was making the right choices.”

The Eagles (11-9) struggled down the stretch. Obama, which shot 43.5% from the field for the game, only made three field goals in the fourth quarter. Naron Jackson II led the Eagles with 14 points, while Elijah Rawlings (12 points) and Sheikh Long (10) also scored in double figures.

The Dragons had also dug themselves a hole with a difficult shooting performance. Allderdice shot 23.1% (3 of 13) from the perimeter. Markus Kuhn also finished with 10 points for the Dragons.

Leaning on their inner toughness, the Dragons were able to use their defense to seal a comeback win.

“Keith (Taylor) got his hands on some balls, Matt (Kossis) got his hand on some balls and that really changed the momentum,” Crummie said. “It went from a half-court, grind-it-out, which is tough for us when Lucas is getting guarded closely in the paint, to transition. It wasn’t the ideal situation, but we were real happy with how it ended.”

Tags: Allderdice, Obama Academy