Mars’ Vinny Smith (32) works his way to the basket in front of Elizabeth Forward’s Jordan Kolesar(44) Saturday afternoon at Valley High School. Smith had 22 points in the Planets’ 49-25 WPIALClass AAA boys basketball playoff win.

NEW KENSINGTON— The preliminaries are over. Time for the main event.

Mars limited Elizabeth Forward to four points in the second half Saturday afternoon en route to a runaway 49-25 WPIAL Class AAA boys basketball playoff victory at Valley High School.

The Planets' reward? A date with unbeaten and top-seed Chartiers Valley at 8 p.m. Tuesday at North Allegheny.

"We've held our past three opponents to 25, 35 and 25 points,"Mars coach Rob Carmody said. "That's 80 total points. Chartiers Valley averages 86 per game. Everyone talks about their 3-point shooting. They average 12 3-pointers a game, which means they're also getting 50 points inside every night.

"We've been winning with our defense. Our 'D' will be put to the test on Tuesday."

Elizabeth Forward (8-14) couldn't solve the Planets' "D"on Saturday.

The Warriors' leading scorer was 6-foot-8 junior Jordan Kolesar, who came off the bench to score all nine of his points in the second quarter, sparking a 9-2 run that cut a 16-point Planet lead to 30-21 by halftime.

"That kid surprised us,"Mars senior forward Vinny Smith said. "We didn't see him on film. He came in and started hitting some shots for them."

Kolesar — and no other Elizbeth Forward player — hit shots in the second half. The Warriors sank one of 26 shots from the field in the final two quarters.

The 25 points allowed by Mars was one point shy of the school record for fewest points allowed in a game.

The Planets (16-7) also held Southmoreland to 25 points in a regular season game Feb. 3. Mars allows an average of 48 points per game.

"To hold a team this low in the regular season is one thing. To do it in the playoffs is amazing,"Carmody said. "Our guys really clamped down today.

"I've never heard of a team scoring four points in a half. I've never been part of something like that."

<table width="300" height="275" border="0" align="right" valign="top" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td><embed src="/assets/mov/BE64728216.MOV" width="320" height="250" autostart="true" loop="false" ></embed></td></tr><tr><td align="center"><a href="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/" target="_blank"><span class="style11">Requires Quicktime Media Player </a><br><font size="1" face="Tahoma, Times New Roman">Video by Brandon Gerthoffer</font></span><td></tr></table>Mars jumped out to a 22-6 lead in the first eight minutes."Playing on a Saturday afternoon, on Valentine's Day when these guys may have been thinking about their girlfriends ... It's a tribute to them how focused they were at the start of this game."Smith paced Mars with 22 points, 11 rebounds, five steals and four blocked shots. Dante Detillio added 10 points and seven boards.Elizabeth Forward averaged 47 points per game this season. Its previous low was 30, against Charleroi and Seneca Valley."Unfortunately, shooting the ball consistently has been a problem for us all year,"Warriors coach Brian Znavor said. "We shot the ball well enough down the stretch to get into the playoffs."Our offense wasn't there today. Mars had a lot to do with that."Jordan Austin had nine rebounds for Elizabeth Forward. Both teams had 31 rebounds. The Warriors had 14 turnovers to the Planets' 12."We don't hold the ball offensively,"Carmody said. "We get up and down the floor, yet these guys still get into their defensive sets."Besides Christian (Locher), we don't have a lot of good shooters. Defense carries us through. The experience of our seniors, Chris Herold, Dante and Vinny, and their commitment to playing both ends of the floor has been big for us."Now Chartiers Valley stands in the Planets' path."I hear they've got three Division I-caliber players,"Smith said. "We'll go out, play our game and see if we're up to the challenge.""You have to play them at some point,"Carmody said. "I thought we deserved a higher seed than we got — I feel like we're the 16th seed — and now we have a chance to prove we're better."Chartiers Valley hasn't lost a game. They haven't played us yet, either. That's how we have to look at it."<B>ELIZABETH FORWARD 25Andrew Wilson 0-1 0-0 0, Dan Scurfield 0-2 2-2 2, Deren Brittinger 1-2 0-0 2, Louis Simon 0-1 0-0 0, Dan Altavilla 0-1 0-0 0, Jordan Austin 2-12 2-5 6, Mike Gazdich 0-1 0-0 0, Sean Lavelle 2-4 0-0 4, Ryan Styche 1-7 0-1 2, Xavier Means 0-2 0-0 0, Luke Urbanski 0-1 0-0 0, Jordan Kolesar 4-10 1-2 9. </B>Totals: 10-44 5-10 25<B>MARS 49Chris Herold 2-7 2-3 6, Brad Weischiedel 1-2 0-0 2, Christian Locher 3-13 0-0 8, Luke Gruber 0-1 0-0 0, Alec Mahon 0-0 0-0 0, Ian Hindley 0-0 1-2 1, Dante Detillio 5-8 0-0 10, Vinny Smith 9-14 3-4 22.</B> Totals: 20-45 6-9 49<B>Eliz. Forward 6 15 2 2—25Mars 22 8 12 7—493-point goals:</B> Locher 2, Smith<B>Tuesday:</B> Mars (girls) vs. Ambridge, 6:30 p.m., Mars (boys) vs. Chartiers Valley, 8 p.m., WPIAL Class AAA playoffs at North Allegheny