Friday night’s drubbing of Bangor was Salisbury’s most complete game of the season on both sides of the ball. The Falcons are hoping that trend continues as the official midway mark of the Colonial League season hits on Friday night.

Salisbury (2-2), however, won’t be on the field until Saturday afternoon when it travels to Pen Argyl (0-4) in search of the team’s first back-to-back wins since Weeks 2 and 3 last year. It’s also an opportunity for the Falcons to get over the .500 plateau for the first time since Week 4 of 2014.

“Being comfortable defensively, they’re understanding their responsibilities and where they need to be,” head coach Andy Cerco said. “They came out in the first half [against Bangor] and got after it. That’s kind of a first for us as a team to come out and right away play at a level that is expected.

“It’s great to see that come to life in a game. That puts the pieces together for the players because they see that we worked that drill in practice and we practice it all of the time, and now it actually happened.”

Salisbury will have to limit Pen Argyl’s rushing attack between the trio of Logan Ruppert, Austin Heisler and Logan Sterner.

Ruppert leads the Green Knights out of the backfield with 196 rushing yards on the season, including 18 carries for 42 yards against Southern Lehigh (a 24-0 defeat) a week ago.

Sterner has carried 38 times for 161 yards and three touchdowns, while Heisler is closing in on 100 yards on the ground through four games.

“They want to run the ball, that’s their strength,” Cerco said. “They line up in a traditional pro set with some twin stuff. But for the most part it’s pro with a split-back. It’s very similar to things that Easton does offensively.”

Ruppert, who will account for much of the Green Knights’ carries on Saturday, is very similar to the style of play that Salisbury saw from Bangor’s Jake Fries last week.

“They are downhill runners, and if they get going and have a gap or a seam, they’re going to hit it,” Cerco said. “They run the fullback a little bit with some dives, traps, and fake tosses.”

When they choose to air the ball out, Pen Argyl relies on senior quarterback Jake Holden. And while he hasn’t seen much success early on (11-of-24 for 164 yards and three interceptions last week), Cerco and the Falcons will always have an eye on the signal caller.

“That can be a tough situation for a team because as you’re focusing on stopping the run…they can slip the play-action pass right behind you,” Cerco said. “That can be something that we have to account for and work on in practice.”

James Klinger is Holden’s main target on the outside, as he led the team with seven catches for 76 yards against the Spartans. Ruppert and Sterner are solid pass-catchers out of the backfield, too.

Kickoff is at 2:30 p.m. at Pen Argyl High School Stadium.