Mars burns hot goalie
WARRENDALE — Even a hot goalie couldn't cool off Mars.
South Fayette senior Mike Coyne made 47 saves and thwarted four consecutive power-play opportunities, including a pair of two-man advantages. But he couldn't prevent a 5-0 Mars victory in the Penguins Cup Class A quarterfinals Wednesday night at Warrendale BladeRunners.
“We were trying to get in his kitchen and he was stoning us for a while,” Planets coach Steve Meyers said. “But we eventually got to him.”
Coyne stopped 20 of 21 shots in the second period as the Planets held a 2-0 lead through two stanzas. Mars (21-1) defeated South Fayette 12-1 and 7-1 in the regular season.
“Mike's been doing this for us on a regular basis,” South Fayette coach Clay Shell said. “He faced 38 shots and allowed only one goal in our 5-1 win over Sewickley Academy in the first round.
“He's faced 51 shots in a game, 58 — that doesn't faze him.”
Coyne entered the game with a 3.49 goals-against average. Mars outshot the Lions (11-9-2) 52-16 on this night.
The Planets, who were playing their first game since Feb. 21, managed only an 8-7 edge in shots on goal in the first period. Mars goaltender Tyler Stepke needed to make a solid save on 18-goal scorer Nick Schultz barely a minute into the game to keep it scoreless.
“We came out rusty and just got a couple of guys back from injury,” Meyers said. “We seemed to get our legs in the second period and played well from there.”
Mars outshot South Fayette 45-9 over the final two periods.Rob Sigurdsson scored the lone goal of the first period shorthanded. Stepke gathered in the puck and flipped it to Elliot Tisdale, who found Sigurdsson up ice for a breakaway with 1:01 left. The tally was Sigurdsson's 23rd of the year.Tisdale scored his team-leading 34th goal of the season unassisted just 2:14 into the second period.“Mars has a great, great team,” Shell said. “I think they're going to win it all again. They have four solid lines they roll out there and we don't have much depth on our bench.”Austin Heakins scored his 11th goal of the campaign 1:40 into the third period after the power play failed the Planets in the second.The two-man advantages were for stretches of 50 seconds and 1:43, but Mars came up empty.Mars' Joe Bender changed all of that in the third period, cashing in on both of the team's power-play opportunities, and now has 23 goals for the season.South Fayette was 0-for-3 on the power play as Stepke posted his sixth shutout of the year.Mars has outscored the opposition 45-0 in the four games it's played since dropping an 8-5 decision to top-seeded Kittanning at Belmont Arena last month.Second-seeded Mars plays No. 4 seed Westmont Hilltop at 5 p.m. Tuesday in the semifinals at Pittsburgh's Consol Energy Center. Kittanning takes on No. 6 seed Hampton at 5 p.m. Monday at the same site.Westmont Hilltop defeated Quaker Valley 5-3 in the first round Monday.
