When your leading scorer, rebounder and player who has made the most free throws for you during the season comes down with an injury where do you turn.

Salisbury head coach Joe Mladosich turned to his entire team when 6-foot-3 senior center Meagan Eripret couldn't play on Saturday night against Palmerton in a Coalonial League playoff wild card game.

Eripret suffered a low ankle sprain in the final regular season game against Southern Lehigh last Thursday. She entered the Palmerton gym on crutches and spent time in the Palmerton training room soaking the ankle in a whirlpool, but spent the entire contest cheering on her teammates from the bench.

And the effort the Lady Falcons gave was definitely 100 percent.

"I'm really proud how hard we played," said Mladosich. "Palmerton has a very good team and our kids played hard to the end and that's all that we could ask for.

"We've got a lot of heart, a lot of seniors and they want to continue to play. We'll get better and we'll get everybody back. We had one day to practice and prepare for this and they made the adjustments well. We made a lot of three's. Their effort was great."

Salisbury and Palmerton earned a split during the regular season so it was anybody's guess what would happen when the two teams met in the wild card round of the revamped Colonial League playoffs on Saturday.

The Lady Bombers took advantage of Eripret's absence and grabbed a 63-50 victory.

Palmerton jumped out to a 14-2 lead in the first five minutes with four field goals coming from beyond the arc (two each from Linnaea Leister and Madison Mummey). They took a 10-point lead into the second quarter and an 11-point advantage at intermission.

The Falcons could have easily packed it in, but junior guard Lindsay Bauer, senior Kelly Gonoude and sophomore Caylin Meikrantz didn't want to hear that.

Bauer scored 13 of her team-high 18 points in the first half to keep the Falcons from getting blown out. Gonoude added 17 points and Meikrantz, who had just one three-pointer in varsity action all season, hit three from long range.

"They (Salisbury) played very well," said Palmerton head coach Rodney Strohl. "Without Eripret the other girls stepped up. Number 20 (Meikrantz) made some three-point shots. That's the first time we saw her play on the varsity level.

"I've got to compliment them. They went hard to the hoop. We got is in some foul trouble in the first half and we didn't play very good defense tonight and that's not going to win games for us unless we play good on both ends. That includes rebounding the ball. We've got to do a better job on that end."

With four minutes left in the third quarter, the Falcons were down by 15 points (46-31), but outscored the Lady Bombers 11-1 to enter the final eight minutes trailing just 47-42. Two treys by Gonoude and another by Meikrantz keyed the run.

Gonoude drove the lane to pull Salisbury within three to start the final quarter, but the Lady Bombers got seven from Farquhar and four more from Abby Reimer to take a 58-47 lead with just under two minutes to play and the Falcons' comeback ended.

Farquhar, who didn't score in the first quarter, had a game-high 21 points. Mummey added 17, Leister 12 and Reimer 11.

The Falcons look ahead for the District 11 Class AA tournament where they could get another shot at the Bombers.

SALISBURY

Keet 1-1-2-4, Gonoude 6-2-3-17, Burkhardt 0-0-0-0, Szita 0-0-0-0, Meikrantz 3-0-0-9, Bauer 5-6-10-18, Bucchin 0-0-0-0, Utesch 0-0-0-0. TOTALS: 16-9-15-50.

PALMERTON

Missal 0-0-0-0, Reimer 4-3-5-11, Mummey 5-3-4-17, Leister 4-1-2-12, Farquhar 7-7-7-21, Sterling 0-0-0-0, Beers 0-0-0-0, Nemeth 1-0-2-2. TOTALS: 21-14-20-63.

Salisbury 9 19 14 8 - 50

Palmerton 19 20 8 16 - 63

Three-pointers: S - Gonoude 3, Meikrantz 3, Bauer 2, Gonoude 1; P - Mummey 4, Leister 3.