When it came to pitchers, Mars was shuffling its deck.

Shaler was holding an ace.

Titan junior right-hander Nick Rispoli threw 71 of his 101 pitches for strikes, struck out eight and tossed a complete-game as Shaler defeated the Planets, 8-2, in a WPIAL Class 5A baseball semifinal Wednesday at Michelle Krill Memorial Field at Historic Pullman Park.

“Their kid threw an outstanding game. He did a number on us,” Mars coach Andy Bednar said.

The Planets (12-9) will return to action next week in a PIAA 5A tourney play-in game against Franklin Regional — a 4-1 loser to Laurel Highlands in the other semifinal — early next week at Washington & Jefferson.

Mars did not crack the scoreboard until the sixth inning Wednesday. JJ Wetherholt delivered a run-scoring single and Tyler Kowalkowski did likewise in the seventh.

Other than that, it was all Rispoli, who will pitch for the University of Dayton when his high school career is over.

“Nick was getting ahead of the hitters. He had command of his fastball and curve today,” Shaler coach Brian Junker said. “He's got a good changeup, too, but didn't need it today.

“We don't really have a No. 1 or 2 starter. We've got two top guys in that regard.”

Having played an 11-inning game the night before while scoring a 4-3 upset over top-seed West Allegheny, Mars used up the bulk of its pitching in that contest.

“We still had a couple of guys left who could have pitched ... Mitchell Schultz and JJ Wetherholt ... even after this game, but, yeah, of course, our main guys weren't available,” Bednar said of his mound situation.

“We debated who to go with today. Alex (Heavner) did a great job closing out last night's game and we decided to go with him.”

Heavner, a sophomore, threw 40 pitches during a four-run Shaler first inning. Collin Harger and Will Jamison had RBI singles, Colton Schott a sacrifice fly in the frame.

When Zach Hernon walked to begin the Shaler second and an errant pick-off attempt put him on third, Bednar pulled Heavner, Senior Shinno Ikeda pitched 1.2 innings before Matt Fuller worked the final 3.1 frames.

“It was tough on Alex, having to start this game after pitching last night,” Bednar admitted. “Matt came in, threw strikes and gave us a chance to come back.

“We just couldn't do much offensively.”

Mars pitchers walked seven and hit a batter. Four of the walks scored.

“We handed them too many baserunners. You can't do that against a team like Shaler,” Bednar said.

Harger had a double and two singles, Schott two RBI for the Titans.

“I was there (Tuesday night) watching Mars play West Allegheny,” Junker said. “I wasn't favoring one team over another, but Mars did a outstanding job against that team. I couldn't root against Joe Craska, the way he was pitching.

“We didn't know anything about West Allegheny. Once Mars won, we felt a little better because they're in our section and we know them.”

The Planets were forced to play two playoff games in 20 hours.

“This isn't sour grapes because we got beat today. Shaler just beat us,” Bednar emphasized. “But when you have two and a half to three weeks to get this tournament in, playing back to back days is ridiculous.”

Junker agreed that the playoff schedule needs tweaking.

“I don't know how important a lot of rest is — the teams that had byes pretty much all lost in our division — but the WPIAL needs to get consistent with the baseball playoff schedule,” he said. “It's different every year.

“Playing on consecutive days? No, we didn't need to do that.”

Mars 000 001 1 — 2 7 2

Shaler 411 011 x — 8 9 0

W: Nick Rispoli 7IP (8K, 2BB). L: Alex Heravner 1IP (1K, 2BB).

Mars (12-9): Tyler Kowalkowski 2-1B RBI, JJ Wetherholt 2B 1B RBI, Mitchell Schultz 1B, Shawn Fox 1B, Ben Merritt 1B

Shaler (14-7): Nick Rispoli 2B, Justin Desabato RBI, Collin Harger 2B 2-1B RBI 2-R, Hunter Boyan 1B 2-R, Will Jamison 1B RBI, Colton Schott 1B 2-RBI, Zach Hernon 1B RBI, Tre Junker 1B RBI

Next: Mars vs. Laurel Highlands, PIAA 5A tournament play-in game, site and time TBA