Not only does pressure help produce diamonds, but in the case of the Obama Academy boys basketball team, it also helped them rally for a win that earned the Eagles a spot in the City League championship game.
No. 2 seed Obama is headed to the final for the third year in a row after storming back from a halftime deficit to defeat visiting No. 3 Carrick, 65-45, in Wednesday’s semifinals.
Obama’s win means that the Eagles will meet three-time defending champion Allderdice in the final for the third year in a row when they square off at 2 p.m. Sunday at Duquesne University’s UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse.
Carrick (8-15), which had won seven of its previous eight games, led Obama (11-8) by two points at the half and held a 29-25 lead early in the third quarter when the Eagles went on a 21-2 run to turn the tables and take control.
“We didn’t really press in the first half. We just kind of tried to speed them up,” Obama coach Naron Jackson said. “But in the third quarter we came out with a lot more pressure and we were definitely trying to turn them over. That run came from a lot of turnovers and aggressive play.”
Jackson’s son, Naron Jackson II, scored a game-high 26 points, while Elijah Rawlings added 14 points and Darnell Clay 11.
Obama did an excellent job defensively against Carrick’s Brayden Fisher, the City League’s leading scorer who finished with 15 points, 9 below his season average. The Raiders were led by Kelenn Ward’s 21 points.
“Fisher is a workhorse,” Jackson said. “I don’t think he had a really big scoring game in any of the games we played. We always knew where he was at. He always scores off of hard-nosed hustle plays, so we just tried to tell our guys to be more physical than them. Once we brought more pressure, it kind of slowed him down.”
Obama, which won for the seventh time in its past nine games, beat Carrick by scores of 54-49 and 60-44 in the regular season.
Carrick had started the season 0-11, which included five forfeit losses for using an ineligible player, but was a win away from reaching the final for the first time since winning the title in 2021.
Other boys semifinal
Top seed Allderdice (14-9) used a balanced scoring effort to throttle visiting No. 4 Westinghouse (3-14), 81-23.
Lukas Stead and Asher Schwartz scored 12 points apiece to pace the Dragons, who led by 10 points after one quarter and by 28 at the half. Matthew Kossis added 10 points and Keith Taylor and Trey Schachter chipped in 10 apiece.
Allderdice defeated Westinghouse by scores of 70-33 and 79-29 in the regular season on its way to finishing league play unbeaten for the eighth season in a row.
Jaymeer Wilson and Souljah Cook each scored 6 points to lead Westinghouse, which dropped its seventh consecutive game.
Girls semifinals
There will also be a championship rematch on the girls side, this after No. 1 Allderdice and No. 2 Obama Academy rolled to semifinal wins. The two will face off in the final for the fourth year in a row at noon Sunday at Cooper Fieldhouse. Obama beat Allderdice for the title in 2022 and 2023 before Allderdice got some payback a season ago.
Allderdice (18-5) thumped visiting Carrick (10-12), 70-14, to claim its 14th win in a row. The Dragons scored the game’s first 29 points and held a 40-3 lead at the half against a Carrick team they beat, 49-17, two days earlier.
“When we played them on Monday we were a little rusty, but today we were more ready to go,” Allderdice coach Ellen Guillard said. “We kind of set the tone in practice, and said that regardless of who we play, we have to come out and play well.”
Allderdice got a big game from Bailey White, who finished with 29 points. Rhyan Sledge tacked on 19 and Peyton Lynch had 12.
Kaliyah Hairston and Reona Grant tallied 7 points apiece to pace Carrick, but no other Raiders’ player scored.
It was a similar story at Obama, where the host Eagles (10-10) raced to a 31-0 lead before going on to capture an 85-10 win against Brashear (9-8).
Obama’s Taylor Phillips, the City League’s scoring leader, pumped in a game-high 22 points, while Nia Benjamin added 20 and Arianna Treadwell 16. Arianna Morant paced Carrick with 5 points.
The game was much more lopsided than the two regular-season meetings between the two, when Obama won by margins of 37 and 43 points.
Brad is a sports writer at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but he's currently on strike. Email him at beverett@unionprogress.com.