With the end of the regular season right around the corner, teams are hoping to be playing their best football in late October and early November in preparation for potential postseason runs.

Following two pivotal wins in consecutive weeks, both coming in vastly different ways, Salisbury head coach Andy Cerco believes the Falcons are playing some of their best football. He understands it’s equally important to keep that play trending in a positive direction.

“We had a pretty good session today [Monday],” Cerco said. “The kids were focused. They understand where we are at and what we need to do. I also think they’re confident in what we’re doing on both sides of the ball.”

Looking to move to three games above .500 for the first time under Cerco, Salisbury (5-3) hosts a Palmerton squad (4-4) that has left some teams scratching their heads.

While the Blue Bombers have easily disposed of Wilson (55-34), Bangor (40-7) and Catasauqua (54-21), they came up a point short against Palisades midway through their season. Throw in a one-touchdown loss to a very competitive Northwestern team last Friday, a game in which the Bombers led 21-14, and it’s even tougher to get a gauge on which Palmerton team might show up on Friday night.

“They have some really talented players,” Cerco said. “They’re kind of an up-and-down team, so it really depends on for them how they handle the week and those kind of things.”

What makes preparing for Palmerton more difficult than many of Salisbury’s recent opponents is the sense of the unknown. The Blue Bombers ran a spread offense for much of their first seven games, but threw in plenty of option schemes during last week’s contest against the Tigers.

“Offensively, throughout the year they’ve been using a spread offense,” Cerco said. “Last week [against Northwestern] they lined up in a triple-option formation and some option, which is kind of counter to what they have done previously.

“It’s mid-line option, and they would run a series of that and a series of spread. Later in the game within the same series they would run three or four plays of triple-option stuff, run some spread stuff, and go back to the triple-option. We certainly have a lot to prepare for and account for.”

No matter what formation they line up in, running back Mike Stasko is going to handle a majority of the offense. The Blue Bombers have doubled their rushing yardage (1,921 yards) compared to their passing yards (855), and Stasko’s 1,134 yards and 15 touchdowns on the ground accounts for much of that.

But there are plenty of other options out of the backfield, particularly if this option attack is going to surface once again. Quarterback Garrett Pershy returns and has ran for 302 yards and four touchdowns. Rai Washington is second on the team in rushing (304) and has scored twice as well.

“He [Pershy] runs the ball underneath, a quarterback trap basically,” Cerco said. “He throws the ball pretty well. They have some capable receivers.”

Pershy is effective through the air as well, completing 60-of-138 passes for 855 yards and nine touchdowns. And Stasko has taken over plenty of the receiving responsibilities, catching 20 balls for 287 yards and four touchdowns.

Just like their offense, Palmerton changes up its schemes on defense throughout the game to keep opposing teams off-balanced.

“Overall, they kind of do a little bit of everything,” Cerco said. “We’ll see a whole bunch of different defensive fronts: 4-4, 4-3 and 5-3.”

The Falcons will honor their 13 seniors prior to Friday night’s game. Kickoff is at 7 p.m.