Salisbury and Southern Lehigh entered last week's Colonial League semifinals matchup on two different sides of recent league history.

Tuesday's appearance in the Colonial League tournament was the Spartans' sixth consecutive, including championships in each of the past three seasons. The No. 3 seeded Falcons, meanwhile, were in the tournament for the first time since 2005.

However, that didn't stop the Falcons from remaining competitive against the South Division champion Spartans in their third matchup of the season. It did, however, end up like the previous two meetings.

Similar to their previous meeting, which was both teams regular season finale on February 6, the Falcons were able to jump out to another quick lead, going ahead 18-10 after the first quarter. The Spartans then made a run and led by as many as nine in the fourth. The Falcons were able to cut that deficit to one with under a minute to play, but a costly turnover ended any hopes of a comeback as the Spartans held on for the 52-48 win on Tuesday at Catasauqua High School.

"Our effort was very good," Falcon head coach Joe Mladosich said. "It's a tough game. They're tough. All of the credit goes to Southern Lehigh. They're pretty good. We'll get there eventually, [and] we'll work harder."

The victory stations the Spartans in the championship game for the fourth consecutive season.

Down 49-40 with 5:08 to play, Salisbury's largest deficit of the evening, the Falcons responded in an impressive way. Meagan Eripret, who finished with a game-high 32 points and 10 rebounds, scored 10 of the Falcons' 12 fourth-quarter points to rally back with an 8-0 run.

After Eripret hit one of two free throws to cut the Spartans' lead to three, the junior connected on her final field goal late in the quarter to make it a 49-48 game. A Spartan turnover on the following possession gave it back to Salisbury, but the Falcons would turn it right back over. The Falcons wouldn't score again.

"Today, even though they pressured us, I thought we hung in there a little bit and we came back," Mladosich said. "Then we resorted back to turning it over. But little mistakes like that in big games, we can't do that.

"We've got to have a little bit more balanced scoring. That hurts us a little bit. But if they're willing to give her [Eripret] 32, I guess we'll take that."

Eripret and Lindsay Bauer had a large part in the Falcons jumping out to a quick 13-2 lead in the first quarter and an eight-point advantage after eight minutes. Eripret hit four of her first five field goals and scored eight first-quarter points, while Bauer added five points in the opening frame. Bauer tallied nine points and seven rebounds.

The Falcons jumped out to an 18-9 lead in their second matchup this season.

"We get off to good starts," Mladosich said. "We seem to come out with a lot of energy. Today when they made their run, we came back a little bit. We're all obviously very pleased with that."

But like the season finale meeting, the Spartans went on a run that ultimately helped decide the outcome. The Spartans increased their three-point halftime lead to eight on a Madelene McDonald layup with under a minute to play in the quarter.

McDonald had a team-high 20 points, nine rebounds and eight steals for the Spartans. Madyson Campbell added 13 points and Sydney Cyr scored 10.

Southern Lehigh went on to lose to top-seeded Northwestern in Saturday's title game.