Powerful Planets knock off Hilltoppers for 6-3 win
WARRENDALE— It doesn't seem to matter who's standing behind the bench for the Mars hockey team.
Tim Coleman stepped down as head coach late in the season for personal reasons. Lynn Sipe took over, but was suspended for the rest of the campaign as the result of a bench-clearing brawl.
Steve Meyers — a player for the Planets only three years ago — guided the team to a 6-3 PIHLClass Aquarterfinal win over Westmont Hilltop Tuesday night at Warrendale BladeRunners.
"Steve played on one of the best teams Mars ever had," Planets forward Jake Robash said. "He can get us there."
"There" is the Penguins Cup Class A title game, which Mars lost last season.
Mars will play an undetermined opponent in the semifinal round March 18 at Mellon Arena.
"I can't complain with the way my team played tonight," Hilltoppers coach Arthur McQuillan said. "Mars is favored to win it all and rightfully so. They are a tremendously skilled team."
The Planets (21-1-0) won their 19th consecutive game and have outscored the opposition 162-28. They defeated Westmont Hilltop 10-0 and 10-1 during the regular season.
"We didn't have our full complement of players in either of those games,"McQuillan said. "And we played six freshmen tonight, including our goaltender. Our future looks pretty promising."
<table width="300" height="275" border="0" align="right" valign="top" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td><embed src="/assets/mov/BE65600312.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>So does Mars' present.The Planets outshot the Hilltoppers 39-21 and scored a pair of power-play goals on eight chances. Robash cashed in on one, Elliot Tisdale the other.Robash scored a shorthanded goal as well, giving Mars a 2-0 lead at the time. Andrew Santa scored the Planets' first goal.Robash has 39 goals and is among the scoring leaders in PIHLClass A."Westmont played us tough tonight,"Robash said. "It's always hard facing the eighth seed because they've got nothing to lose. They really came at us.""We wanted to come out physical, bang them around and try knocking them off their game,"McQuillan said. "We knew we were going to take some penalties doing that."We took too many. Set the table for a team like that and eventually they're going to feast."Trailing 2-0, Westmont Hilltop (10-11-1) scored a power-play goal of its own when Andrew Herbert IInotched his fifth goal of the year off a rebound with 41 seconds left in the period.Mars ran away from there, however. Tisdale's power play goal and Derek Sitterly's 15th tally of the campaign gave the Planets a 4-1 lead entering the third period.Robash's power-play goal hiked the count to 5-1 early in the final period.Defenseman Steve Tracy scored the Planets' final goal as his slapshot from just inside the blue line went off the glove of goaltender Adam Ayre and into the net.Westmont Hilltop scored a pair of third-period goals, including Corey Schafer's 32nd of the season, but it couldn't prevent Mars goaltender Tyler Stepke from getting the win. Stepke made 18 saves and is 11-1 with a 1.02 goals-against average."Mars is one of the best skating teams I've seen in Class A in a long time,"McQuillan said. "They play together, they're unselfish and they're well-coached."It's going to be hard for anybody to beat them."Meyers could not be reached for comment.
