Mars dominates Chartiers Valley to capture 5th straight WPIAL Class 2A boys lacrosse title

By: Greg Macafee
Thursday, May 27, 2021 | 8:37 PM

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The Mars boys lacrosse dynasty continues.

After a tight first quarter that saw the No. 1 Fightin’ Planets (19-0) come away with just a one-goal lead, they opened the floodgates and scored nine goals in the second quarter, five in the third and two in the fourth to cruise to an 18-4 victory over No. 2 Chartiers Valley (15-5) and capture their fifth straight WPIAL Class 2A title.

“This is surreal every time and I’ll never get tired of it,” said junior Wesley Scurci who scored a team-high six goals. “Honestly, after not having last year, it feels even better.”

Including Thursday’s victory, Mars has outscored opponents 361-61 this season, they’ve never allowed an opponent to score over 10 goals, and they’ve pitched three shutouts.

They utterly dominated throughout the playoffs, beating Franklin Regional, 29-3, and South Fayette, 20-6, before stepping on the field at Robert Morris’ Joe Walton Stadium.

But for the first 13 minutes of the game, the Colts held the Fightin’ Planets in check.

Mars’ Austin Cote scored the first goal of the game at the 6:58 mark of the first quarter and Nick Crowley added the second with 2:21 left in the first frame.

With 1.6 seconds left in the first quarter, the Colts scored their first goal as senior midfielder Jackson Fodor found the back of the net.

“We thought we could play lacrosse with them, and that was the biggest thing,” Chartiers Valley coach Dom Tolomeo said. “There were plenty of periods in this game where I saw that it was an evenly matched game and it was fun. But they just got too much separation.”

After Thomas Nomides tied the game at two 30 seconds into the second quarter, the Fightin’ Planets came alive. Scurci scored his first goal at the 10:34 minute mark, then tallied his second two minutes later to make it 4-2.

From there, the Fightin’ Planets scored three goals in 35 seconds to pull away and never looked back.

“I don’t know if we were tight or nervous, but we didn’t play with the same energy level that we normally play with,” Mars coach Bob Marcoux said. “We just had to get our energy level up and keep going.”

From there, Mars scored five of the next six goals to take an 11-3 lead into halftime. In typical Mars fashion, they kept their foot on the gas.

Cote, who scored four goals, tallied the first goal of the second half at the 8:46 mark of the third quarter and then Scurci’s fifth goal of the game split a pair of goals from Crowley to make it 15-3.

“At halftime we told the guys, ‘Look at all the people in the stands. We really want to show them what Mars lacrosse is all about,’” Marcoux said. “I didn’t think, without the energy that we normally play with, we could’ve gave them what they paid for.”

The Fightin’ Planets closed out the game in the fourth quarter with goals from Cote and sophomore Kyle McEwen to finish it off.

Greg Macafee is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Greg by email at gmacafee@triblive.com or via Twitter .

Tags: Chartiers Valley, Mars