Mars Area basketball coach describes scene when gunman reported outside school

The high school basketball gym had been packed for a game that took three overtimes to decide. After passing through a handshake line, the visiting South Fayette and the home Mars Area boys varsity teams headed downstairs to their locker rooms.

It had been an near-ideal Friday night high school contest, even if his team came up just short, said Mars Area basketball coach Rob Carmody.

Then, as he started to address his squad, everything changed.

“I was literally one or two sentences into my talk when an athletic trainer came running through and yelled, ‘Shut the doors! There’s potentially a gun on campus,’ ” Carmody said Saturday.

Moments earlier, a report had been received of someone with a weapon in the parking lot outside Mars Area High.

It forced players, coaches and others from both teams to briefly shelter in place inside rooms in the building’s lower level.

The terrifying event ended quickly, without injuries, authorities said.

“Officers responded immediately to this incident and apprehended the individual with the weapon,” Mark Gross, Mars Area superintendent, said in a statement on the district website. “Please note that the individual with the weapon was not a Mars Area student. Adams Township police is continuing to investigate.”

The identity of the person apprehended was not available, nor was the nature of the confrontation or how many people were involved.

An Adams Township police officer reached Saturday was not authorized to release information on the weekend.

Carmody said his 18 players, four coaches, a statistician and an athletic trainer huddled together in one room, trying to process what they had just heard.

He said the sound of footsteps overhead told him some of the 500 people who he estimated had attended the game were scurrying back inside to escape the commotion.

“The first thing we told our guys was to let your families know you are safe,” Carmody said.

He urged them to stay off social media, so as not to fuel rumors about what was happening.

As police, school officers and others quickly secured the scene outside, both teams waited in their locker rooms for the all-clear. What felt like five hours was perhaps 15 or 30 minutes, Carmody said.

South Fayette won the game 77-72.

Like others, Carmody, who is in his 25th year coaching, praised the emergency response.

But he said it’s unfortunate that something innocent like a high school sporting event — in which both teams and fans handled themselves well — could be marred by something senseless and frightening.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re 18 or 51. When you hear there might be a weapon on campus, you’re like, ‘Did I just hear that?’ ”

He said both teams should have been able leave for home still focused on a game — his squad because it was hard fought and South Fayette because of their win.

“They were robbed of that,” he said.

South Fayette basketball coach David Mislan could not be reached Saturday, nor could Mars Area Athletic Director Zach Matusak.

Gross said in his statement that additional details regarding the incident will be provided when that information becomes available.