Through the team's first five Colonial League games, Northwestern baseball head coach Len Smith was pleased with his team's performances, even in its two losses.

The Tigers started the season with wins over Palmerton, Northern Lehigh and Southern Lehigh, while coming up a run short in their two losses against Pen Argyl and Bangor. That set the Tigers up at a game above .500 entering their matchup last week against last season's Colonial League champions in Salisbury.

Unfortunately for the Tigers, it was a game they would like to forget as quickly as possible.

The Falcons (6-3 overall; 4-3 in Colonial League) got a complete game from Chad Cooperman, and the Tigers (5-4 overall; 5-3 in Colonial League) were held to just four hits in Friday's 6-0 defeat at Salisbury High School.

"We did things that we haven't done in the first couple of games," Smith said, "which is very uncharacteristic for us. We were swinging at bad pitches [and] chasing pitches out of the zone.

"We were pretty well zoned-in in the first couple of games. Even though we lost a couple, we still scored a bunch of runs."

The loss was the Tigers largest margin of defeat this season and the only time they were held without a run.

"We didn't play well today," Smith said. "As far as I'm concerned, we took a step backwards."

After a scoreless first inning, the Falcons got at least one run in each of the next five frames. Mike Palmer knocked in Nicholas Sikora with an RBI-single to get the offense going in the second.

Alex Nicholas drove in two runs in the third to make it a 3-0 game, and the Falcons scored on RBI-singles in the fourth, fifth and sixth innings as well.

Bradon Eden started on the mound for the Tigers, but endured some trouble from the get-go. He allowed six runs on 10 hits in four innings. He also walked two Falcon batters.

"We're working on different things," Smith said. "Hopefully as time goes along, we'll correct some of those things, and he'll end up performing as he did last year."

For the Tigers, Austin Yanek went 2-for-3 in the box, and Collin Breidinger and Josh Williamson recorded singles in the sixth and seventh innings, respectively.

"I want to see how we rebound from this," Smith said. "The two games that we lost in the league prior to this were both one-run games, and we had our opportunity to win those games. We just didn't get a big hit at the right time."

The Tigers responded in a way that Smith was looking for after that loss to the Falcons. They secured two one-run victories on back-to-back days. The Tigers defeated Wilson, 9-8, on Sunday and Palisades a day later, 10-9.

Results from Wednesday's game against Saucon Valley were not available at time of press. The Tigers will travel to Jim Thorpe on Thursday for a 4:30 p.m. start. They host Lehighton on Monday at 11 a.m.