MANOR TWP — It was a win, but Mars boys basketball coach Rob Carmody saw a lot he didn’t like about it.

The Planets fell behind by eight points early, but rode a 21-0 run that spanned eight minutes over the second and third quarters for a 57-50 road victory Thursday night at Armstrong.

Mars (4-0), though, was wildly inconsistent two days after an emotional section win against rival Knoch.

“Good basketball teams, they grow from game to game,” Carmody said. “Tuesday you’re playing Knoch. Big rival. Packed gym. You’re all excited and you come out with focus and energy and mistakes then happen because of effort and we responded to everything that was thrown at us.

“Tonight, we didn’t have any of that, especially at the start,” Carmody added. “It was like someone dragged them and made them come here tonight.”

But the Planets did enough to win and are still undefeated going into the Christmas break.

Robby Carmody had a hand in it with 19 points, but so did several others.

Andrew Recchia scored 16 points and hit four 3-pointers. Ben Lewis scored nine points and hit a pair of clutch 3s and Ben Perdziola added eight points and a slew of rebounds for the Mars’ effort.

The Planets, who shot 50 percent from the floor, led 39-25 after the epic run and were by 16 early in the fourth quarter.

“We can shoot the ball,” Coach Carmody said. “I think that’s a thing most people don’t realize. We can put the ball in the basket, and that masks some things when you can make some shots.”

It didn’t mask almost coughing up a big lead.

Armstrong (3-3) went on a 16-4 run to cut the lead to 52-48 with a minute remaining.

The Planets were able to hang on, however.

Rob Carmody wondered why his team even had to hang on to begin with.

“You’re on the road and this is everyone’s fourth varsity game except for Robby,” the coach said. “And you find a way to win on the road on a Thursday night. So a positive, yes.

“As a coach, it’s a double-edged sword,” he added.

Carmody let his team know of his dissatisfaction.

“As a 26-year-old and I took over this program, any win was tremendous. Now these guys are walking out of here tonight thinking, ‘Coach is crazy. We won the game.’ This is where we’ll find out how mature of a team we are. You won tonight and a lot of them can come in and say, ‘What are you talking about? We won the game.’ Or they can feel like I feel like that we didn’t play the way we needed to play.”

MARS 57

Cade Hetzler 1-5 0-0 2, Andrew Recchia 4-6 4-5 16, Robby Carmody 8-16 2-4 19, Ben Lewis 3-8 1-3 9, Ben Perdziola 4-6 0-1 8, Jerry Stoddart 1-1 0-0 3, Max Chizmar 0-0 0-0 0, Michael Carmody 0-0 0-0 0. Totals: 21-42 7-13 57.

ARMSTRONG 50

Dawson Porter 2-5 0-0 4, Jalen Price 0-1 0-0 0, Joe McCanna 6-10 0-0 17, Mike Kunst 4-12 4-4 14, Nate Baillie 6-12 3-6 15, Hunter Shanty 0-1 0-0 0, Isaiah Price 0-4 0-0 0, Nick Russo 0-0 0-0 0. Totals: 18-45 7-10 50.

Mars 8 21 14 14 — 57

Armstrong14 11 7 18 — 50

3-point goals: Mars 8 (Recchia 4, R. Carmody, Lewis 2, Stoddart); Armstrong 7 (McCanna 5, Kunst 2)