ADAMS TWP — Another varsity sport will soon be available for boys at Mars High School.

The district's school board April 14 approved boys volleyball to be added to the high school's spring sports slate, beginning in the 2016-17 school year.

“I played on the girls team when I was at Mars,” said Marlene Myers, a 1987 graduate who was involved with getting approval for the boys team. “It will give boys at Mars another option to get involved in sports.”

Myers' son, Parker, along with Brett Jackson and Matthew Macri, were all part of the boys volleyball program at Holy Sepulcher in Middlesex Township, which includes students through the eighth grade.

When the boys moved on to Mars High School as freshmen, they were entering a school that did not offer the sport.

“We received permission by the board in April 2014 to explore the possibility of adding boys volleyball,” said Marlene Myers.

“We tried to get interest in the sport and spread the word as much as we could,” said Jackson. “I'm grateful the school board has decided to take on boys volleyball. It will help Mars get caught up with other local schools that already have it.”

Three other Butler County schools — Butler, Seneca Valley and Summit Academy — currently offer boys volleyball.

Fourteen players from Mars competed on a club team this past winter. That group included a junior, 11 sophomores and two freshmen.

“Most of the boys had no prior experience other than picnic volleyball,” said Marlene Myers, who coached the team. “We focused on the fundamentals of the game. Just getting time on the court helped a lot.”

The program will have to field at least 16 players — varsity and junior varsity combined — by the time the Spring 2017 WPIAL schedules are released to officially be included in the mix for Mars two years from now, but Myers is confident that number can be reached.

“Our sophomores will then be seniors,” she said. “We've gotten a lot of interest and I think we will have a good pool of players at that point.”

If the quota is reached, a coaching search will begin “at the start of the 2016-17 school year,” said Mars athletic director Scott Heinauer.

The current cutoff for a boys volleyball team to be classified as Class AA is 467 male students. Mars currently has 394 boys, so it is very likely that when the Planets do jump into varsity play, they will do so at the Class AA level.

Until then, Myers is looking forward to the players getting more experience.

“We're still developing kids when it comes to the different positions, but we have a good mix,” she said. “Next winter, we'd like to get more into the different offensive and defensive sets. We need everybody to get more comfortable with each other and improve.”