Mar 7, 2021 4 min read

For a No. 13 seed to beat a No. 5 seed, just about everything has to go right.

For the Trinity boys basketball team, just about everything went wrong Saturday afternoon.

The 13th-seeded Hillers already pulled one upset in the 2021 WPIAL playoffs when they stunned Highlands in a 20-point romp Wednesday night, but lightning didn’t strike twice three days later against Mars.

The Planets outscored Trinity, 27-4, in the second quarter and moved on to the 5A Semifinals with a 67-55 win that wasn’t as close as the scoreboard indicated.

The highlight of that second quarter was their 22-0 run that lasted more than six-and-a-half minutes. For Mars coach Rob Carmody, his team played almost perfect basketball in that period.

“There was about a 10-minute stretch where offensively and defensively, we didn’t make a mistake. … we just did a lot of really good things,” Carmody said.

Trinity coach Tim Tessmer was on the wrong side of that quarter.

“They came out and made a bunch of shots, and we were struggling to make them,” Tessmer said. “Our guys didn’t fight through the adversity.”

There were times in the first half where it felt like Mars (16-3) just couldn’t miss. The Planets were 10 of 18 from beyond-the-arc in the first 16 minutes. Zach Schlegel hit four three-pointers, and Bryce Cunningham and Mihali Sfanos each had two as part of the onslaught.

In the end, Schlegel led the way with 19 points, Cunningham wasn’t far behind with 15 and Sfanos added an even 10.

It was a hard way to go out for Trinity’s four seniors, led by Michael Dunn. After putting on a show in the first two rounds, scoring 37 points against Kiski and 35 against Thomas Jefferson, Dunn scored a game-high 25 – 18 of which coming from three- in the loss.

“He’s been a warrior for us all year,” Tessmer said. “He’s done a lot for this program. I hate to see him go out in a game like this.”

Tessmer doesn’t feel that the Hillers (10-9) have any reason to hang their heads.

For one, there was a time when nobody inside or outside Trinity’s program knew if a high school basketball season would be possible, so every game held a higher meaning than in pre-COVID-19 years.

On the court, the Hillers made some good things happen as well, beating Kiski and then upsetting Highlands for a surprise rune to the quarterfinals.

“It was a successful season,” Tessmer said. “We talked all year, just getting games was going to be a success. We were able to showcase our seniors at the end of the season.”

“I don’t think anybody expected us to get this far,” Dunn said. “No one expected us to beat Highlands. Some people probably thought we were going to lose to Kiski. We came in with that mentality and the chip on our shoulder. Even when we got the 13 seed, I knew we were better than that. I know this is a good team, and we don’t listen to outside noise.”

For the first time this postseason, Mars will be the underdogs. The Planets take on top-seeded Chartiers Valley in Wednesday evening’s semifinal.

Through 19 games, Carmody knows what type of team he has. The question is if the Planets’ strengths will outweigh their flaws and lead to a WPIAL Championship, something Mars fell short of by two points last season.

“We are who we are,” he said. “We can turn the ball over. We have to make shots. We have to be scrappy defensively… It doesn’t really matter who (we play) at this point. We are what we are. So for us, we just have to do it at a very efficient level.”

For Carmody, the Planets will need to channel some of what they did in the second quarter to get back to the WPIAL finals.

“We have to do all the things you saw us do tonight,” he said. “We have to just continue to do them, but you can’t do it for 16 minutes. You can’t do it for 24 minutes. We have to figure out a way to get 32 minutes out of that if they want to win a championship.”