There is no sugarcoating the specifics of Saturday’s City League championship game.
Take one glance at the tale of the tape, and it’s clear Allderdice is no match for two-time defending champion Westinghouse — at least on paper. After all, the Bulldogs bulldozed the Dragons by a score of 50-6 in their first meeting on Sept. 26, exactly one month prior to their upcoming championship rematch at 3 p.m. Saturday at Cupples Stadium.
Winner of four of the past five City League titles and a back-to-back PIAA Class 2A finalist, Westinghouse (7-1, 4-0) boasts the No. 2 scoring offense among all WPIAL and City League teams with an average of 49.8 points per game, and the Bulldogs’ ferocious defense allows only 7.1 ppg. On the other hand, Allderdice (5-4, 2-2) averages 15 ppg and allows 15.8 ppg.
Then again, there’s a reason these games aren’t played on paper.
“It’s going to be a challenge,” said Dragons coach Mark Matson. “We’re not going to pretend like Westinghouse isn’t the cream of the crop in the city. That program is phenomenal over there. … Historically, they have beaten us pretty handily in the regular season for the past [six] years. And in that stretch, we’ve beaten them in the playoffs two times in those [six] years for a city championship.
“This is not a situation that we’re not used to or accustomed to.”
For the fifth time in the past seven seasons, Westinghouse and Allderdice will collide for the City League crown, with the fierce rivals splitting the previous four contests with two wins apiece. The Dragons won the 2018 title game, 18-8, then the Bulldogs took home a 36-20 triumph in 2020. In 2021, Allderdice pulled off a massive upset against previously unbeaten Westinghouse by shutting out the Bulldogs, 14-0, then Westinghouse exacted its revenge with a 40-8 beatdown in the 2022 title game.
All in all, this is the eighth year in a row the Bulldogs and Dragons will meet in the postseason. And just like each of the previous seven matchups, the winner will go on to become City League champion. Of course, there is one big difference this time around — the absence of longtime Allderdice coach Jerry Haslett, who died in a car accident less than a month before the start of what would have been his 16th and final season.
“Coach Has had been saying for years and letting these seniors know that when they graduated, he was going to be done,” Matson said. “He just wanted to go out a champion with them. I think they’ve had that in the back of their minds all year.”
For renowned Westinghouse coach Donta Green, coaching in the championship game without his former adversary on the opposite sideline is something he never would have anticipated. Always poignant with his words, Green paid homage to the everlasting impact Haslett had on the rivalry between the two teams and City League football as a whole.
“His ability to get his guys to run through a wall — I think that’s one of the qualities he had that wasn’t often talked about,” Green said. “Every single time you played Allderdice [under Haslett], those kids played hard, and they always felt like they had a chance to win the game. … That’s definitely a big loss, not only for Allderdice, but for the City League, period.
“He’s a City League legend who is no longer with us.”
In Haslett’s place, Matson took over as head coach with very little time to prepare and performed a fantastic job in steering the Dragons to a five-win season and another trip to the championship game. No. 3 Allderdice started its season with an emotionally charged comeback win at Fox Chapel, then rebounded from a rough patch late in the season to upset No. 2 seed University Prep in last week’s City League semifinals, 14-6, setting up Saturday’s rematch with the top-ranked Bulldogs.
The Dragons will receive a big boost on Saturday with the return of leading rusher Nasir Scott, a talented junior who already has a pair of 200-yard games on the season but was suspended for the previous two contests after a fight in a 14-0 loss against University Prep on Oct. 5. Allderdice then avenged its defeat against the Wildcats just 12 days later, bolstered by big-bodied backup running back Demond Simms, who ran for 75 yards and a touchdown in the semifinal victory against University Prep last Thursday.
“[Simms] did not play in the first game [against University Prep], and they really took advantage of running the ball right where he should have been,” Matson said. “We always felt like we had a good chance the second time around. … They were missing some key pieces. I would have rather seen them at full strength. I don’t want an asterisk. But you have to play the game with who’s there.
“Those are always fun games. The two of our teams are pretty evenly matched.”
Westinghouse had its own unique path to the finals in the aftermath of a fight that took place on the opposite sideline late in the third quarter of a 43-6 win against University Prep on Oct. 11. The 11 players on the field for the Bulldogs at the time of the fight were the only eligible players for last week’s City League semifinal against Perry, as the rest of the team received a mandatory one-game suspension for leaving the sideline during the altercation.
Despite playing with no substitutions and often using only 10 players on defense, Westinghouse still trounced the overmatched Commodores, 68-0, to advance to the title game. And although the 38 suspended players weren’t allowed to suit up against Perry, they still made their voices heard from the bleachers while taking part in the customary chants and cheers throughout the game along with the Bulldogs’ die-hard fans.
“It’s been a learning experience, man,” Green said. “As soon as I feel like I have the grasp of this coaching thing, another curveball comes. As a team, it gave us another opportunity to put our back against the wall and face some adversity and be very intent with how we respond. I feel like the 11 guys who played did an amazing job, and I feel like the 38 who were suspended did an amazing job of adding value in a way they were allowed to add.
“It started in pregame. All the chants we do in pregame, they were doing them [in the stands] alongside the 11 on the field. From that moment, I knew those guys were locked in.”
As for those 11 on the field on Friday, Green credited senior captain Lloyd Penn with leading the charge against the Commodores, both during the game and in practice during the week. A wide receiver-defensive back who caught a pair of touchdowns in the win, Penn was the only eligible player with prior experience as a defensive starter, and he takes pride in excelling in all three phases of the game — including special teams, where he also serves as the team’s kicker and punter.
“He was the true tone-setter this week,” Green said. “I think we depended on him more on the non-football aspect. Him just being the ultimate leader and keeping them encouraged and confident all through the week. Because it was a blow, not having all our guys. But he was very intentional in making sure our guys knew we could come out and play hard.”
Senior quarterback Khalil Green was nearly flawless, completing 9-of-10 passes for 249 yards and five touchdowns while also tacking on a 5-yard rushing score. Elsewhere, senior running back Lenny Wicks had perhaps his best game yet after transferring to Westinghouse from Harvest Prep in Columbus, Ohio, rushing for 182 yards and two TDs as the Bulldogs’ primary ball carrier in place of No. 1 back Khalil Mitchell.
Now, with all 38 players cleared to return from suspension in the championship game, Westinghouse is fully loaded and ready to begin its run for a third consecutive state championship appearance. Mitchell will resume his role as the leader of a talented stable of running backs, and fierce defensive linemen Josiah Collins and Nyxai Robinson will be back to anchor the Bulldogs’ punishing defense up front.
“They’re chomping at the bit,” Green said Tuesday. “They can’t wait to play. We have a long week. I know if we could play tomorrow, those guys would play tomorrow. But it will be good for us to have those guys back.”
But first, before the teams embark on their separate paths in the PIAA tournament, it’s time for them to settle the score once and for all on Saturday afternoon. And after all the turmoil and tragedy he and his players have endured to get to this point, Matson wouldn’t have it any other way.
“We go into every season kind of figuring that we’re going to have to go through Westinghouse if we want to win anything meaningful,” Matson said. “So yeah, this is kind of how we envisioned it all offseason and all summer. And then with everything that happened, it didn’t change what we wanted to do.
“You only get so many opportunities to go out there and play this game with your brothers, and you never get them back. You can’t let any of these moments pass by. Just embrace it and enjoy it. If it wasn’t a challenge, it wouldn’t be fun.”
Steve is a sports writer at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but he's currently on strike. Email him at srotstein@unionprogress.com.
