Four Butler County area football teams were still playing football this weekend.

Karns City, Union, Slippery Rock and Cardinal Wuerl North Catholic all stood pretty good chances of extending memorable seasons.

A fifth local team — one that is not playing this weekend — enjoyed a rather memorable season in its own right.

The Mars Planets.

Mars’ 2014 campaign ended last week with a 28-13 loss to Thomas Jefferson in the WPIAL Class AAA quarterfinals. A seemingly ordinary 7-4 record — ordinary by Mars’ standards — went into the books with that defeat.

But this was truly an extraordinary season for the Planets and should be recognized as such.

In truth, many prep football followers had Mars written off after the first game of this season. A 29-26 loss at Indiana was troubling enough. But it was coupled with a season-ending injury to running back Josh Schultheis, who broke his fibula in that contest.

Schultheis was not just your typical standout high school running back.

He was the defending Butler Eagle Scoring Trophy winner, tallying 132 points his junior year. He was entering his senior season with well over 3,500 career rushing yards, needing only 1,102 to break Bill Bair’s school record of 4,702.

But it wasn’t to be. Schultheis never got on the field again.

Seemingly, his loss would be too much to overcome. Mars was playing in the Greater Allegheny Conference, after all, a league that just added Gateway to an already stellar class of football programs like Mars, Knoch, Franklin Regional and Hampton.

Losing your stud running back and a standout linebacker while facing a top-caliber schedule? Good luck with that.

But Mars didn’t regress. It retooled. Ori Rinaman took over as the primary running back and rushed for 1,245 yards and 22 touchdowns.

Isaiah Johnson added 506 yards rushing and five touchdowns.

Jake Rosswog threw for 1,038 yards. Freshman receiver Robby Carmody snared five touchdown catches and averaged 41 yards a reception as a big-play threat.

The Planets played their usual stingy, physical defense.

And Mars plowed on.

Needing a win on the road against undefeated Hampton in the regular season’s final week to guarantee themselves a playoff spot, the Planets snared a 20-14 triumph in overtime.

Mars entered the WPIAL playoffs for a 10th straight year, finished with a winning record for the ninth straight season.

It upset Montour, 42-27, on the road in the first round.

It took a storied Thomas Jefferson program — one that has won 131 of 146 games over the past 11 years — to knock the Planets out. No, Mars isn’t playing this weekend.

But that program played its guts out all year and beat adversity while doing so.

Kudos for that.

John Enrietto is sports editor of the Butler Eagle.