It was a game the Salisbury softball team needed to win.

Coming into their meeting against Moravian Academy over the weekend, the Falcons had dropped seven straight league games after starting out 3-0 in the Colonial League.

A combined two-hit shutout from pitcher Brooke Rogers and an offensive showing that produced 10 hits helped Salisbury (4-7 in Colonial League) end that conference losing streak with a 9-0 victory over Moravian Academy (1-10 in Colonial League) on Saturday afternoon at Patriots Park.

Salisbury also defeated Allen (2-1) earlier in the day on Saturday.

"We've been losing a lot by one run," Rogers said. "We have a very talented team, and there are a lot of very talented teams in the league. I just feel that right now we have to keep our composure and come out there and hit."

While their previous league win prior to Moravian came over two weeks ago, it's not as if the Falcons hadn't been close in those games.

In that losing streak, five of those seven losses came by just one run. Their only lopsided defeat came against Catasauqua (12-2) on April 12, the same team Salisbury fell in nine innings to on Friday.

"We were competitive to stay in the fight every single game," head coach Ken Choquette said. "Unfortunately, the sort of preseason that we had has contributed to a lot of errors. We're not as well-oiled of a machine that I would like to be by the time we get to this point in the season."

After Thayla Creswell's RBI-double in the second inning gave Salisbury a quick 1-0 lead, the Falcons added four runs in the third.

The first three batters reached base in the third, and a Lion outfield error helped score Katie Gilligan on Anna Bishop's single to left field. Meghan Williams' sacrifice fly scored Bishop to make it 3-0, and runs by Rogers (on a Moravian error) and Costantini (on a wild pitch) gave the Falcons a comfortable advantage at 5-0.

Costantini (2-for-4, two runs) and Creswell (2-for-3, two RBIs) recorded RBI-singles in the fifth to pad Salisbury's lead to 7-0.

Rogers blasted her second of two doubles in the sixth and scored on Williams' triple. Williams then scored on a Moravian wild pitch moments later to cap the Lions' scoring.

"There's no one that I have seen that I don't think we can beat," Choquette said. "When we're firing on all cylinders, we can play with any team in this league. We just have to play error-free ball."

Rogers, who tallied six strikeouts on the day, didn't allow a hit until the fourth inning.

"I'm just throwing my pitches and doing what I can do best," Rogers said, "so the batters don't get on top of it."

To go along with that losing skid, it's been an up-and-down season for the Falcons. They've shown that they can play with everyone in the Colonial League. Palmerton's only loss of the season has come against Salisbury, and the Falcons have also defeated a Pen Argyl team that is currently 7-4 in conference play. In their two meetings against the league's top teams, Southern Lehigh (7-2) and Bangor (7-2), the Falcons came up short by one and two runs, respectively.

"[It's been] situational hitting," Rogers said of those one-run losses. "We just need to have confidence in ourselves, and go up and do what we can do. We have tons of talented girls on our team."

The Falcons travel to Saucon Valley on Friday for a 4:15 p.m. start. Results from Tuesday's game against Northern Lehigh were not available at time of press.