ADAMS TWP — Wrapping up the first half of section play, Mars girls basketball coach Tony Howard was leaving nothing to chance.

The Planets used a 16-2 run in the first quarter to run past a young Knoch team for a 60-36 Section 1-AAA victory Thursday.

“I kind of hoped we'd get off to a good start,” Howard said. “We wanted to make Knoch work, not to make it easy for them.”

Alexa Lee scored seven consecutive points to start the aforementioned run and capped it with a 3-pointer.

Lizz Tumminello chipped in with six first-half points as the duo combined for 16 of the 18 points.

In all, Lee finished with a game-high 19 points while Kelsey Pelles and Carly Clark had 13 points apiece for the Planets (10-6, 4-1).

“The last three or four games, we've had great ball distribution,” Howard noted. “There have been equal chances, the spacing has been better and the ball has been moved around a lot more.”

The closest the Knights (3-12, 1-4) got after run was 13 points, the final time at 23-10 with 2:51 before halftime:

Freshman guard Celina Sanks tallied 10 of the Knights' first 14 points and finished with 13 points.

Sanks and sophomore guard Samantha Logan could form a strong Knights backcourt for the next two seasons.

“We see a lot of good things, but you hope things move along faster,” said Knights coach Sean O'Donnell.

Amber Henzel and Brooke Armahizer contributed nine and eight points, respectively, coming off the bench.

“You can see we're struggling,” O'Donnell said. “It's a new system, a new coach. We're trying to get the kids to play together, get some confidence and play well with each other.”

Mars received eight steals from Kelly, eight rebounds from Pelles and five assists from Lee.

The Planets begin the second trip through the section next week against first-place Kittanning, which handed Mars its lone section loss.

“We had hoped to be one game better than we are, but you have to win your home games and win the ones you can on the road and we lost to Kittanning on the road,” Howard said.

“Losing to Kittanning was not bad. I told the girls to take it one game at a time. You can't change the past ... but they've done a tremendous job.”

KNOCH 36Heather Cooper 0 1-2 1, Haley Williams 0 0-0 0, Kate Miller 1 0-0 3, Sam Logan 0 0-0 0, Celina Sanks 4 5-6 13, Brooke Armahizer 3 1-2 8, Amber Henzel 3 3-5 9, Rachel Neff 1 0-0 2, Savannah Steffen 0 0-0 0.

Totals: 12 10-17 36.

MARS 60Carly Clark 5 0-0 13, Meghan Kelly 3 2-2 8, Lizz Tumminello 2 2-2 6, Alexa Lee 8 0-0 19, Kelsey Pelles 6 1-2 13, Alyssa Mathews 0 0-0 0, Brinsley Evanson 0 0-0 0, Randi Francis 0 1-2 1, Gabby Kosobucki 0 0-0 0, Paige Castora 0 0-0 0.

Totals: 24 6-8 60.

Knoch 6 6 14 10—36Mars 18 12 17 13—603-point goals: Knoch 2 (Armahizer, Miller); Mars 6 (Clark 3, Lee 3).

Monday: Mars at South Park

Wednesday: Mohawk at Knoch