High school playoffs can produce a lifetime memory — or be cold-hearted.

Seneca Valley and Mars have experienced such a spectrum this spring.

The Raiders are experiencing one of the most successful spring postseason runs in WPIAL history.

Four of their teams — baseball, softball, boys volleyball and girls lacrosse — reached the WPIAL championship game in their respective sports. A fifth, the boys lacrosse team, reached the semifinals.

The softball team had to scramble to make the playoffs at all, then bounced previously unbeaten Hempfield and scored 11 runs in an inning to dispatch Baldwin in the semifinals.

The baseball team needed to win three section games in a week to claim that championship, then fought its way to successive 2-1 playoff wins to reach the WPIAL title game.

“That’s one of the wonderful things about sports,” SV baseball coach Eric Semega said. “Every now and then, you get a good athletic class coming through a school and they set the bar for other teams down the road.”

Mars had such a team in baseball.

The Planets suffered only one loss during the regular season — 1-0 to Hampton — and were looking forward to a rematch with the Talbots in the WPIAL semifinals.

They never got there.

Mars was knocked off by Hopewell, 3-2, in the quarterfinals after receiving a first-round bye.

A key hit in the fifth inning, a sacrifice fly in the sixth or one more clutch hit in the seventh would have been enough to extend the Planets’ season.

But, some times, those things simply don’t come.

“This is one of the toughest losses in my coaching career,” Mars coach Brian Hobaugh said after that game.

Mars had posted its best won-loss record in more than a decade. Its team batting average of .361 was the highest in school history, as was the team slugging percentage of .678.

Matt Eperesi had a school-record .608 on-base percentage. Blake Friday had a school-record 23 stolen bases in his prep career and tied Bob Kalkowski’s (1993) single-season record of 25 runs scored.

Friday stood at third base, looking to break the record after delivering a triple with none out in the sixth inning. But he never moved, watching three consecutive groundouts end the inning.

That was one teetering record that never fell.

Seneca Valley continues to enjoy the drama of an incredible postseason. The Raider softball team plays Latrobe Thursday night at California (Pa.) University, the baseball team headed to Consol Energy Field in Washington Tuesday for an 8 p.m. date with Peters Township.

Mars is left to wonder what might have been.

Success isn’t always measured by championships.

Sometimes, it’s trumped by fate.