The good news in Mars is there are a lot of talented young baseball players.

The bad news is there's only so much room right now for one team.

So, this season, the area boasts two squads.

There's Mars I, the same squad that has competed for the Eagle County title for years.

Then there's Mars II, a bevy of recent Mars High School and American Legion stars looking to get some playing time.

"There are a lot of kids in Mars that want to play baseball," said Mars I coach Mike Sheehy. "We've got to take the younger kids and get them to play.

"There are five or six kids from Mars that are playing for Cranberry Township. We call them Mars West," Sheehy joked.

Scott McCandless, coach of the Mars II squad, was looking to help a group of players form their own squad.

"I have 15 kids who wanted to play baseball," said McCandless. "Mike has his group and I have mine."

Both teams got off to slow starts. Mars I, which won its third consecutive Eagle County title last year, started out 0-3, including a 3-0 loss to Mars II.

After last week's 12-7 win over Saxonburg, Mars I improved to 5-6 and Mars II has moved to 6-9.

Mars I still had its usual lineup of Rob Ronk, Greg Schuetz, Sheehy, Paul Westwood, Greg Reinhart, Ryan Salazar, Ron Talik, Craig Hasley and Matt Sondej.

This lineup appeared together for the first time in that Saxonburg game and Sheehy declared it'll be together the rest of the year.

What hurt the squad was losing its top two pitchers: Rob Fester to a torn ACL in the first inning of the first game of the year, then pitcher Chris Kelly joining the Natrona Heights team.

"We had some adversity," said Sheehy. "Losing Robbie was shocking. He's a horse."

For Mars II, its lineup is stocked with a lot of the high school talent from the past few years - players like Josh Rape, Matt Rovnan, Adam Schmidthamer, Derec Ciafre, Clint McCandless, Brian Hart and others.

"I've got our main group of guys that for the last four or five years that have played great," said McCandless.

"They'll be fine. We want to try and get to .500 this year and go from there. Anything over .500 will be a bonus. We have kids here who love the game.

"Mike has his full roster and Mars has always had a full baseball squad. Something needed to be done," McCandless added.

So McCandless formed a second team, but he and Sheehy agree it may be an every year thing.

"There won't be two Mars teams for a long time," said Sheehy. "We want to make sure we have one strong team."

Said McCandless, "We'd like to have two teams in the Eagle County league. Maybe in some years, we won't, but I hope it doesn't. It gives more people some playing time."

McCandless does know one thing - he knows after this year, he'll step aside coaching the team.

"These guys are having fun. Win or lose, it doesn't matter. I'll coach for this year, then turn it over to the team next year," hje said.

No one may know the future of multiple Mars teams, but the future of Mars baseball appears to be strong.

Said Sheehy, "Chester Marburger (the late Butler County American Legion president and Mars Legion manager) is smiling because there's enough interest to have two teams in Mars."