ROSS TWP — Sara Getsy sat with her back pressed against the white concrete wall in the bowels of North Hills Middle School, her knees pressed to her chest and her warmup shirt covering her face.

She was crying.

Ali Goetz sat across from her, back against a railing, her face ruddy from tears.

It was just moments after the Mars girls basketball team suffered a 52-34 loss to South Park in the first round of the WPIAL Class AAA playoffs and the Planets were locked out of their locker room.

The insult.

The injury: South Park knocked Mars out of another postseason.

“Still a great season for our girls,” said Mars coach Tony Howard. “I think when they look back on it in a day or two they’ll realize all the wins they had.”

Mars entered the game with 18 wins this season and 59 victories over the last four years.

But the Planets haven’t won a playoff game since the 2009-10 campaign.

Early, it looked like that drought was going to come to an end.

Mars jumped out to a 7-2 lead with a little more than a minute remaining in the first quarter and had held South Park star Allison McGrath to zero points and zero shot attempts.

The Eagles (14-10) closed the quarter on a 6-2 run to close the gap to one, led by two at the half, and then surged ahead 28-20 early in the third quarter.

That put Mars in a chase position and the Planets were never able to catch up.

“The first quarter played out just about how we wanted it to play out,” Howard said. “We just didn’t score the ball. I think eventually it just came down to we didn’t make enough plays on offense.”

South Park did make plays, Natalie Clydesdale in particular.

The Eagles’ point guard galloped her way to the hoop, scoring a game-high 18 points.

When Mars (18-5) was able to fence in Clydesdale, McGrath got hot, adding 17 points.

For South Park, which rallied to beat Hopewell Saturday in a preliminary-round game, the mindset against Mars was simple.

“We had nothing to lose at this point,” said first-year South Park coach Juliet Highberger. “We had everything against us as far as rankings go and records and statistical information you can hold against a team.”

South Park, though, had a pedigree.

Even though most of the players who keyed a run that had the Eagles playing in the WPIAL final for the last three seasons and won a state championship two years ago were gone, the tradition still stuck.

“I have a lot of girls who have been in this situation,” Highberger said. “I also have a lot of girls who haven’t.”

Getsy led Mars with 14 points. Goetz added 10, including all six of the Planets’ points in the third quarter as they got as close as 30-26 before another run by South Park salted the game away.

Mars, which was finally able to get the players into its locker room 20 minutes after the loss, was hoping to delay the end of its season much longer.

“It’s definitely hard,” Howard said. “That’s the bad part of being together for so long and having so many ups and downs. There are downs and everybody but one team is going to have this feeling somewhere along the ride. It was a little sooner for us than we expected.

“When they come back and see three section title banners on the wall,” Howard added, “I hope they’ll feel pretty good.”

SOUTH PARK 52

Kacey Kastroll 0-0 0-0 0, Emily Marcus 0-0 0-0 0, Natalie Clydesdale 8-13 2-4 18, Alyssa Greer 2-5 2-2 7, Brittany Andrews 1-3 6-6 8, Jessica Jones 1-5 0-2 2, Allison Mcgrath 5-8 6-6 17. Totals: 17-34 16-20 52.

MARS 34

Sara Getsy 5-9 1-3 14, Nicole McCloud 2-9 0-0 4, Jess Bunner 0-0 0-0 0, Ali Goetz 3-12 4-4 10, Elise Sheehy 1-3 0-0 2, Lauren Wasylson 2-4 0-0 4, Bri Buzard 0-0 0-0 0, Bonnie Workman 0-2 0-2 0. Totals: 13-39 5-9 34.

South Park 8 14 10 20 — 52

Mars9 11 6 8 — 34

3-point goals: South Park 2 (Greer, McGrath); Mars 3 (Getsy 3)