Salisbury girls basketball head coach Joe Mladosich refused to make any excuses for his team’s performance. But it’s hard to think that 10 days away from formal practices didn’t at least play a part in the Falcons’ 39-33 loss to Oley in the first round of the Falcon Holiday Tournament.

“We haven’t had practice for 10 days but some of the things like effort and boxing out, we should still be doing that,” said Mladosich. “That’s what hurt was our effort. It’s probably our worst performance of the year. Nothing against Oley Valley at all, but our performance lackluster at best.”

Salisbury seemed in control of the game early, taking a 15-6 lead early in the second quarter. But when the Lynx went to a zone defense in the second quarter they went on a 12-0 run to take the lead and held an 18-17 edge at halftime.

“They went to zone,” said Mladosich. “We didn’t make shots and we didn’t get a good job getting the ball inside. We’re not overly big but we’ve got to box out better than we did today.”

Oley out-rebounded the Falcons 34-17 in the game and 28-14 over the final three quarters.

Linsday Bauer put Salisbury back on top early in the second half, scoring the first five points of the third quarter. Caylin Meikrantz scored to give the Falcons a 23-18 lead early in the quarter, but the Lynx stayed within striking distance before taking the lead for good, 33-32, with 2:39 left in the fourth quarter. And went up Salisbury turned the ball over eight times in the final period and made just one of six shots from the field over the last eight minutes as Oley outscored the Falcons 11-3 in the period.

Oley went 6-for-6 from the foul line over the final 25 seconds to seal the win.

Bauer led the Falcons with 16 points, while Rylee Donaldson added eight.

Amanda Aulenbach scored a game-high 21 points for the Lynx, who will face Freedom in tomorrow’s tournament title game. The Patriots beat Hatboro-Horsham in the other first round game on Monday.

Salisbury faced the Hatters Tuesday (after Press deadline) in a consolation game.

“I think it’s good we’re going to compete tomorrow because I told them I didn’t think we competed very well,” said Mladosich. “Ten days off or not, you still have to compete.”

The team had not practiced at the school or with coaches since the district closed two weeks ago because cases of Whooping Cough were detected in students.

The Falcons headed into the break at 4-0 in league play and are now 4-4 overall.

“Prior to this I thought we were getting better,” said Mladosich. “This is a step in the other direction but we’ll get back at it now that we’re back to school. We play tomorrow and we’ll have some things to practice after that.”