WARRENDALE — Quaker Valley was an perennial Penguins Cup contender just a couple of years ago.

Mars is one right now.

The Planets began the defense of their 2009 Class A Penguins Cup championship with a 7-2 triumph over Quaker Valley in a PIHL quarterfinal matchup Wednesday night at BladeRunners.

Top-seeded Mars (21-2) won its eighth straight game and will take on fourth-seeded Bishop McCort (16-6-1) in the semifinals Monday or Tuesday at Mellon Arena.

"I feel like we're primed to win it again," Mars forward Elliot Tisdale said. "We just can't take anyone for granted, that's all. We have to be ready for every team we play."

Tisdale scored three goals in Wednesday's win, his third hat trick of the season. He leads the team with 26 goals.

"(The hat trick) means a lot more because it came in a playoff game," Tisdale said.

Robert Sigurdsson, Tyler Thomas, Austin Heakins and Russell Miller also scored for the Planets in a game that was close for quite a while.

Thomas' 11th goal of the year occurred short-handed and gave the Planets a 2-0 lead less than four minutes into the contest.

But Quaker Valley (12-10-1) answered with a breakaway goal by Benjamin Moidel three minutes later, beating Mars goalie Tyler Stepke with a high wrist shot.

Moidel struck again later in the first period, putting home a rebound while his team enjoyed a two-man advantage. That tally cut a Mars lead to 3-2.

The score stood that way until Tisdale's second goal of the night with 8:30 left in the second period. He was open in the left slot, took a pass from Sigurdsson and buried it past QV goaltender Zach Gittins.

"They crushed us twice during the regular season (9-0 and 7-0), so I was proud of the fact we hung with them tonight," Quaker Valley coach Kevin Quinn said. "We hadn't scored more than one goal against them in our last six games or so.

"Stepke is a special goaltender. He robbed Kevin Kenny from point-blank range with what could have been the tying goal. You have to put pucks behind him when you have the opportunity. We didn't do that enough," the Quakers coach added.

Stepke entered the game with a 1.27 goals-against average and seven shutouts.

Quaker Valley was just 1-for-7 on the power play and failed to score with a two-man advantage for 1:36 in the second period, when the Quakers were trailing by two goals.

"Our penalty kill was huge tonight," Mars coach Steve Meyers said. "Tyler let in an early goal when he was rusty, but once he faced a few shots, he came up big for us."

Quinn said his team hit a couple of goalposts, deflected one shot on top of the net and fanned at a wide-open net.

"The chances were there," he said. "Not scoring on that second 5-on-3 killed us."

Less than two minutes after the Planets killed those penalties, Heakins scored on a 2-on-1 break with Conrad Thibault to give Mars a 5-2 lead.

A Quaker Valley power play to begin the third period was thwarted and the Quakers never threatened again.

Mars was 1-for-3 with the man advantage and held a 34-28 edge in shots on goal.

"We took a lot of penalties early and couldn't get our regular lines on the ice," Meyers said. "Once we're able to roll our three lines out there on a regular basis, we're hard to stop."

Mars eliminated Quaker Valley in the semifinal round last year. Before that, QV reached the Penguins Cup title game three consecutive years, winning it twice.

"We had a young team this year," Quinn said. "Our third line was all freshmen and at times was out there against their top line.

"You can't hide from that. All you can do is go play and that's what we did."

Nick Blaney assisted on four Planets goals. Heakins and Tyler Whiteford had two assists each.