MARS — They love to be hated.

To them, being despised means they are winning.

A lot.

And that’s just what the Mars Eagle County League baseball team has done for the last six years.

Win championships.

“You know nobody wants you to win,” said Mars player/manager Brendan Malone. “They shake your hand and tell you nice things, but when I sit in the league meetings, I know they don’t like me. I am a nice guy, but I’m very competitive and I want to win.”

Mars won its sixth consecutive league title with a 12-0, five-inning mercy-rule win over Cranberry in the decisive Game 5 at Marburger Field Friday evening.

“The evil empire,” Malone joked. “It’s fun to root against us.”

Malone, though, had a fitful night’s sleep thinking about Game 5 after Cranberry had rallied from 2-0 down in the series to win Game 3 and Game 4.

Cranberry had done the same thing to Mars II last week and claimed a win in Game 5 of that series to advance to the championship round.

There would be no Cinderella story this time around for Cranberry.

Mars battered Cranberry starting pitcher Eddie Emes, chasing the tall right-hander with a 7-0 lead in the bottom of the fourth inning.

Mars extended its lead to 9-0 against Cranberry relief pitcher Tim Mulvey before the fourth came to an end, and then scored three more runs in the bottom of the seventh to trigger the 12-run mercy rule.

Malone could breathe easy again.

“We actually told the young guys who had a rough two games, ‘the four horsemen will take over — me, Bobby (Spithaler), Dan (Penberthy) and John (Taveras),’” Malone said. “‘The old guys will take over and take care of business.’ It didn’t matter. They all took care of business.”

Jimmy Devine got the win, giving up just one hit — a leadoff double in the top of the fourth inning by Reed Tomlinson.

Meanwhile, Mars banged out 15 hits. Malone had two singles, a double and scored three runs; Penberthy had three singles and two RBI; and Spithaler added two singles and drove in three runs.

Taveras and G.J. Senchak also had a pair of hits.

“I didn’t expect we’d score 12 runs,” Malone said.

Neither did Cranberry player/manager Bill Clinefelter.

“To win three in a row would have been tough,” Clinefelter said. “I get that. You just wish you would have performed a little bit better.”

Still, Clinefelter said the Game 5 loss wouldn’t diminish what his team was able to accomplish this season.

“We had a great run,” Clinefelter said.

Mars has had the run of all runs the last six seasons.

Malone said the pressure is there to keep it going — and to keep wearing the villainous black hat of the league.

“You have to have that older core because the young guys look at us and they need to know everything is going to be all right,” Malone said. “We had an 18-year-old kid (Scott Ventura) playing shortstop today. You’re playing an 18-year-old and a 54-year-old (Sam Sibeto Sr.), so we know we had to step it up for sure.

“I had to play some psychiatrist for some of the young guys who were down last night,” Malone added. “So I’m going to put player/manager/psychiatrist on my resume.”

Along with champion.

Cranberry 000 00x x — 0 1 2

Mars 121 53x x — 12 15 2

One out in fifth when mercy run scored

W: Jimmy Devine 5IP (2K, 2BB). L: Eddie Emes IP (K, BB).

Cranberry: Reed Tomlinson 2B

Mars: John Taveras 2-1B, Brendan Malone 2-1B 2B 3-R, Dan Penberthy 3-1B, Bob Spithaler 2-1B 3-RBI, Brent McCormick 1B, G.J. Senchak 2-1B RBI, Scott Ventura 1B 2-RBI, Sam Sibeto Jr. 1B