Marching On
MOON TWP — Members of Mars' girls lacrosse team did not allow themselves much time to celebrate the first WPIAL championship in program history, earned with a 10-3 victory over Blackhawk last Wednesday.
“One night. We celebrated it for one night,” said senior defender Carly Kern. “We knew the state playoffs were coming up and that's a whole different monster.”
The Planets began their assault on the PIAA Class 2A bracket early and often in Tuesday's first-round playoff against District 10 champion Conneaut, scoring five goals in the first five minutes en route to a 15-7 victory at Moon High School's Tiger Stadium.
“The girls can feel the talent that we have on this team,” said Mars coach Monica Ewansik. “We're ranked No. 2 in the state (by maxpreps.com) and everyone was pumped up for this game.”
The Planets (17-3) will meet District I's Strath Haven, a 15-8 winner over Susquehannock, in a quarterfinal Saturday at a site and time to be determined.
Mars' boys were also victorious, shutting out Hershey 12-0 in Latrobe.
Charlotte Stamper (2), Kellen Fletcher, McKenna Merritt and Zoey Krock each scored goals in the Planet girls' opening spree and the Planets led 5-1 with just 4:39 gone from the clock.
Conneaut's Rylee Jones scored two goals to help settle things down for the Eagles (6-8) and their deficit was still five goals (8-3) with just over seven minutes before halftime.That's when Mars freshman McKenna Merritt took over, scoring her team's final four goals of the first half, including a pair in the final 48 seconds, to hand the Planets a 12-3 lead at halftime.Merritt scored a game-high six goals.“McKenna has had a great season,” said Ewansik. “She's controlled, composed and is a player who knows her role and is really good individually, but can also contribute to the unit as a whole.”Conneaut has had a girls lacrosse program for nearly a decade, but the Eagles were making their first appearance in the state playoffs.“We knew Mars has a great squad with a lot of talent,” said Conneaut coach Scott Shannon. “We are a young team with just two seniors, who we are going to miss greatly, but we started five freshmen and this was a great step for them.”Ewansik said she was a little concerned with a letdown she perceived in the second half, though reserves played much of the final 25 minutes for the Planets.“Sometimes, it takes a bit to pump the girls up, but they're ready for this,” she said.Kern added: “I think we got a little too confident. All we can do is learn from it.”Also scoring multiple goals for Mars were Stamper (3), and Krock (2). Starting goalie Alaina Metal and backup Amber O'Neil both had four saves for the Planets.Jones paced the Eagles with four goals while teammate Nicole Hazen stopped seven shots on net.
<b>Boys Lacrosse Mars 12, Hershey 0</b>Nick Crowley, Austin Cote and Wes Scurci each scored three goals and the Planets' defense shut out the Trojans.“We had a good opportunity to scout Hershey on film, knew they had a good offense and a good goalie,” said Mars coach Bob Marcoux. “We were patient on offense. We're really good when we take the good shot, not the first shot.”Marcoux was impressed with the play of goalie Jake Gareis, saying: “He made some big saves early to keep us in it. We had a good idea of what they were going to do and our defense executed well.”The Planets (20-0) will take on District III's Trinity, which defeated South Fayette 23-7, in a quarterfinal Saturday at a site and time to be determined.
