ADAMS TWP — Mars football coach Scott Heinauer had to reach deep down his depth chart to keep the season alive.

Meanwhile Hollidaysburg coach Homer DeLattre pulled a quarterback rotation out of his hat.

Desperate times.

Mars handled the urgency better, getting two big touchdown passes from Jake Rosswog in the first quarter and the Planets' defense did the rest, holding the Golden Tigers to just 13 yards rushing in a 21-0 win at the Mars Athletic Conference Friday night.

The shutout was what Heinauer was most proud of.

“That's one of the things we pride ourselves on — defense,” Heinauer said. “Getting a shutout is something our kids strive for every game. We haven't given up a whole lot of points all season long, so this is enjoyable for most of our kids.”

The win puts Mars (5-3, 4-3) in a much better position in the Greater Allegheny Conference playoff race heading into the final week.

“It's still a muddled mess,” Heinauer said, smiling. “It's always a muddled mess. It is what it is. We dug our hole here. I told our kids before the game, 'We can't make mistakes.' Fortunately, that's something we got out of tonight.”

Mars, which has been without fullback Josh Schultheis for all but one quarter of the season with a broken leg, found itself without two more backs against Hollidaysburg.

Fullback Ori Rinaman, who injured his knee last week against Knoch, tried to go but didn't last a half. His backup, Isaiah Johnson was out with an illness That left a running back by committee of sorts for the Planets.

But first, Mars needed to loosen up the Hollidaysburg defense.

Rosswog found tight end John Castello alone in the back of the end zone for a 21-yard touchdown pass with 4:25 remaining in the first quarter, and then wide receiver Robby Carmody made a one-handed grab on a post pattern for a 40-yard touchdown reception from Rosswog less than three minutes later for a 14-0 first-quarter Mars lead.

“They put all those guys in the box — you gotta throw the football,” Heinauer said. “They got 10, 11 guys in the box, you gotta do something. You can't just keep trying to run the ball.”

Mars did run the ball, though, after that first quarter with some success.

Nate Rosswog finished with 82 yards on 16 carries and sophomore Paul King, the fourth fullback on the depth chart, churned out 39 yards on 11 carries, including a 7-yard touchdown run in the third quarter that closed the scoring.

“We're digging as far as we have to dig,” Heinauer said, smiling. “But our kids sucked it up from an offensive standpoint and did a great job.”

The offense continued to struggle for Hollidaysburg.

The Tigers were unable to mount any kind of consistent running game and the rotation of Josh Bickley and Ryan Adams at quarterback produced mixed results.

Bickley threw two first-half interceptions and was 10 of 25 for 107 yards. Adams fared a bit better, completing 5-of-6 passes for 43 yards.

“We wanted to create a little bit of a spark,” DeLattre said. “We've been struggling the last three weeks offensively.”

But without the ability to grind out yards on the ground, Hollidaysburg was poor on third- and fourth-downs, converting on just 2-of-17 in those situations.

“We have to do a better job executing,” DeLattre said. “They were good up front and we weren't able to run the ball successfully.”

Now it's Hollidaysburg (4-4, 3-4) that's in desperation mode next week when it plays at home against Indiana.

“We have to do a good job of preparing for Indiana this week,” DeLattre said. “This conference is solid. We had a couple of situations we got ourselves in, leading against Gateway and Hampton that we didn't hold. We put ourselves in this situation.”