Midway through the third quarter of Saturday's City League boys' high school basketball championship game against Oliver, the Allderdice team's substitutes and fans rocked the Peabody High gymnasium with raucous calls of "Hawk-D!"

The cheer fired up the Dragons en route to a 57-40 victory over the Bears and the league title, Allderdice's first in 22 years.

The win lifted the Dragons' record to 17-7, heading into Saturday's 4:30 p.m. Class AAAA first-round PIAA tournament game against WPIAL runner-up Gateway (18-5), which also will be played at Peabody.

Allderdice coach Andre McDonald said he and his assistant, Jason Rivers, came up with the defense's name while coaching summer league recreation teams.

"A lot of teams were emphasizing where they were from," McDonald said. "We wanted our teams to have a common bond, and that bond was defense."

As McDonald and Rivers searched for a way to capitalize on that camaraderie, they agreed on the hawk, an aggressive bird of prey.

"We want our defense to be like the hawk that swoops from the sky and surrounds its prey with its wings," McDonald said.

The moniker has been a crowd-pleaser at the Squirrel Hill school. The team's warm-up shirts sport "Hawk-D," and Dragons fans chant the phrase, particularly when Allderdice needs to make a big stop.

Naming it is one thing. Trying to explain it is another, considering the defense employs many elements and constantly evolves, much like the famous Amoeba defense used by Buzz Ridl when he coached at Westminster College and the University of Pittsburgh in the 1960s and 1970s.

McDonald said the comparison is a good one, but he likes the aggressive name he and Rivers coined.

"We'll switch from man-to-man to zone and use a lot of different zones," McDonald said.

Versatility is key as the Dragons use zone combinations of match-up, 1-2-2, 2-3, 3-2, a triangle-and-2 and a 1-3-1, with changes occurring every three or four times down the court.

"We want to swarm over [the opposition] like a hawk and attack them like offenses attack us," the coach said.

Because of their aggressive defense, the Dragons rely heavily on their bench. To McDonald, that's a big advantage.

"We use nine players," he said. "We want our players to challenge the other team and make them work for their baskets."

A prime example of the team's depth is Justin Dobbs, a 6-foot-2 sophomore guard, who came off the bench in last Saturday's victory to lead all scorers with 17 points.

The Dragons feature four starters averaging in double figures: point guard Branden Johnson (10 ppg), Brandon McLester (14.5 ppg), Ishmael Swain (16.3 ppg) and Ben Mickens (13 ppg). Swain and Mickens scored 16 and 10 points, respectively, against Oliver.

Not every key player is an offensive threat, a fact displayed by Eric Mallinger, a 6-5 junior center, who had seven rebounds and six blocked shots against the Bears while scoring two points.

"[Mallinger] is not a big point-scorer, but he changes games," McDonald said. "He blocked a couple of 3-point attempts, and we'll throw him out on the top of the 1-3-1 [defense] because he forces the other team to make bad passes."

The Dragons will test their defense against Gateway.

McDonald said he has seen the Gators, WPIAL runner-up to Mt. Lebanon, three times this season. Playing Gateway will be unique, he believes.

"We haven't played anyone with the height they have," he said. "They have guys that go 6-10, 6-7, 6-7 and 6-3," he said. "Our concern is for us to make good passes and hope that our guards can exploit them. We want to run off some screens, get some open shots and get (6-10 Gateway center Barnett Harris) out of the paint."

McDonald likes his team's chances in Peabody's gym.

"We've played there a lot," the coach said. "This game will be the third one we've played there this year, and we played there three times last year. We're comfortable up there."

He hopes the Gators, and any other opponent Allderdice faces this season, won't be in the same zone as his team.

"We want to keep them off-balance," he said.

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