Tony Howard

ADAMS TWP — It wasn't rock bottom, but the Mars Planets found themselves looking up from a deep hole early this past season.

The young Planets dropped their first five games and eight of 10, but the losses didn't tell the entire story.

The Planets were learning, getting battle-tested along the way and primed themselves for an amazing second half.

Behind fifth-year coach Tony Howard, Mars went 9-4 the rest of the season — which included a 9-1 record in Section 1-AAA — and earned a spot in the WPIAL playoffs.

For his efforts, Howard has been named the Butler Eagle Girls Basketball Coach of the Year.

Moniteau's Mark Yeager, A-C Valley's Dave Sherman and Seneca Valley's Rob Lombardo were also considered.

“I think the success was me keeping them going and them keeping me going,” said Howard. “It was easy to coach players in tune to listen. They wanted to get better and work hard.”

The Planets had scored more than 37 points in just two of the first 10 games, but all eight of the losses came to teams that qualified for the WPIAL playoffs — including five teams that finished with 18 wins or more; programs such as Blackhawk, Keystone Oaks, Montour, Elizabeth-Forward, Hopewell and Mohawk.

“Coach Howard has a very hard-working style,” said senior guard/forward Randi Francis. “He wants us to play our best. He says he doesn't care if we lose. As long as we work hard, he's happy.”

The Planets (11-12 overall) began to pile up victories, particularly in section play. The lone losses after Jan. 4 included Hampton, a 38-34 road loss that proved to be the team's lone blemish in Section 1.

“We led after three quarters, but Hampton scored the first 12 points of the fourth quarter to take the lead. ... We just ran out of gas.”

The team also lost consecutive non-section contests against Quad-A playoff-bound Pine-Richland and Class AAA WPIAL runner-up South Park.

But five consecutive wins closed out the regular season, including a hard-fought 48-46 victory over the Talbots, allowing the Planets to be section co-champions, something no one could have imagined.

“The one thing he kept saying was, ‘Keep working for next year,'” Francis said, “but he meant 2012.”

“I like to see us have as much effort and energy as we can,” Howard said. “I saw that from the get-go, last spring and summer.

“I thought I might have thrown too much at them early in the year and it threw them off.”

His team showed it could handle the pressure. Francis and Brinsley Maughan-Evanson were the lone two seniors.

“This was my first group of freshmen,” Howard said. “I knew we'd have good basketball players coming up. The rough thing as a coach with seniors is you don't get to coach them again. We grew together. ... Them seeing my style and me seeing their style paid dividends.”

At many points of the season, the team had three freshmen on the floor at the same time, guards Jessica Bunner and Sarah Getsy and forward Ali Goetz, even starting, as they did in the first-round playoff loss to South Fayette.

That night in February, when they limited the high-scoring Lions to 35 points, seemed miles away from where the Planets were just seven weeks earlier.

That's a testament to the coaching of Howard.

“I think one of the most important characteristics of coach Howard is he never gives up,” Francis said. “We could be losing by 20, but he'd still light a fire under us, keep us playing. Even when we were 2-8, he never gave up on us.”