WARRENDALE — Steve Meyers has seen the Mars hockey team have highs and lows over the past dozen years or so.

Its recent run of success, however, has placed the program among the elite teams of the PIHL.

Meyers, now in his fourth season as head coach, has guided the team to three consecutive Penguin Cup championships and the past two state titles.

“It seems to go in flows,” said Meyers. “I graduated in 2003 and we had a powerhouse team, then we had a couple of down years. After this season, we could be down again.”

Mars has reached the Penguins Cup championship game four consecutive years, having lost to Quaker Valley in 2008.

After Thursday's 6-1 Class A quarterfinal victory over Freeport at BladeRunners, the program has gone 86-6 in Meyers' four seasons at the helm and were 14-5-1 during the 2007-08 season under Tim Coleman when the team reached its first Penguins Cup.

“It's built up nice,” Meyers said. “We've had a number of Class AAA-caliber talent that's come up. It's been crazy for our program.”

Meyers, as a freshmen at Mars back in 1999, recalls a section title that year and began to see the foundation beginning to take hold.

“You could see it coming,” Meyers said. “We've gotten it where we want to. It's always been a strong program.”

Mars, however, has had to rely strictly on club programs and anyone interested in playing. For the past several seasons, after the Mars Orbits youth program dissolved, the Planets have relied on just their freshmen (which includes middle-school aged players), junior varsity and varsity teams.

“In Single A, I don't know if anyone else has a youth program. I don't pay much attention to that, but the bigger schools do,” Meyers said.

Meyers is joined by assistants Mike Maganello and Steve Neese while Nick Freidhoff and Steve Kobert coached the jayvee squad and Ian Finney and Sam Mashuda the freshman team.

“I think you're seeing that route more,” said Finney, a 2008 graduate of Mars. “It would be nice for them to play a couple of years before. It could be helpful for them to get acquainted.”

Finney did not play in the Orbits program when he was younger, instead was a member of amateur squads.

“I think a majority of the guys did,” Finney said. “I think some of the older guys on varsity played (for the Orbits) but I don't believe any on my freshman team did.”

Senior defenseman Bryan Thomas did play for the Orbits when he was younger and knew when he came up through the ranks that Mars was going to be a force in high school hockey.

“I expected us to be good,” Thomas said. “We had a lot of good championship teams that were built through the years.

“We always had a lot of depth on the bench when we won the state titles. We had three lines that could go the whole game,” Thomas added.

Senior forward Nick Blaney agreed the program would become a force.

“From a young age, you could see we were going to be good,” Blaney said. “We have tons of young talent ... They know that they just can't play together just this year. It's motivation to keep pushing.”

This year's seniors — which also include Robert Foley, Greg Makozy, Rusty Miller, Joe Bender and Nate Nelson — have only know championships at the varsity level and know they'll have to keep digging if they're going to leave as champions once more.

Finney could see the window of opportunity his senior season despite the team's loss in the Penguin Cup.

“We graduate some seniors and Quaker Valley was losing about nine of 10 guys,” Finney noted. “It was kind of a rivalry between the two of us and we knew there was an opening.”

Since then, the program has flourished under the eye of Meyers, who played at Slippery Rock University and served as an assistant coach for Mars before taking over the reins.

After this season, Meyers is hopeful his goaltending will shore up and help the team defensively. The squad got a little spoiled as the dazzling play of netminder Tyler Stepke led to all the championships the last three seasons.

“We have talent coming through,” Meyers said. “We have practice back-to-back with the junior varsity team and I've seen those guys and the freshmen have some nice players.

“It's hard to say if we'll be as dominant as we've been, but definitely, the talent's there.”