Salisbury guard Chad Cooperman clenched his fists and yelled out emphatically as he headed to a team huddle. That’s because seconds earlier he hit the biggest shot of last weekend’s game against rival Southern Lehigh.

Cooperman’s three-pointer from the right wing tied Salisbury’s largest lead of the game at eight points, 53-45, capping a 5-0 Falcon run that forced Southern Lehigh into a crucial timeout with under three minutes left on the clock.

The stop in action didn’t seem to phase Salisbury, as it increased its lead to 13 just moments later. And a number of free throws in the final minute lifted the Falcons to a 61-54 victory against Southern Lehigh.

“Coach always tells me if I’m open I need to shoot the basketball,” Cooperman said. “Dylan got me for a good look; we broke the press pretty easily. I was sitting there wide open on the wing, did my job, and knocked down the shot.”

Prior to Cooperman’s clutch shot, Blake Jones connected on a baseline layup that pushed Salisbury’s lead to 50-45 after the Spartans had closed an eight-point deficit to just three. Jones scored seven in the fourth quarter alone, 12 total, to keep the Falcons (12-0 overall, 9-0 in Colonial League) unbeaten at the midway point of the season.

“I think they tied it at one point in the fourth quarter,” Jones said. “I know that I wanted to do what I could to help us get back in it. My teammates were finding me, too. We were hitting some shots.”

“We executed and we made the right plays at that point,” head coach Jason Weaver said. “Nobody tried to force, and nobody tried to take it one on two or one on three. We hit the open guy. We have shooters. Blake is a shooter. Coop is a shooter.”

While the win kept the Falcons unblemished in the loss column, Southern Lehigh (12-2, 9-1) suffered its first loss in the Colonial League. Add a 51-47 win against then-unbeaten Bangor last Thursday, and the Falcons completed a three-day stint that proved they might be the team to be in the league.

“These two games had playoff-like atmospheres,” Cooperman said. “We were just really looking forward to coming out and competing. Even though it’s early January and we’re only at the midpoint of the season, we felt that we needed to win these two games to prove something to the other teams.”

“We wanted to prove something to the rest of the Valley, to the rest of the league, that we’re the team to beat. It’s not necessarily Bangor this year. Going back to the Bangor game, we kind of wanted revenge on them.”

Salisbury fell to Bangor in last year’s Colonial League title game.

Saturday’s game featured seven ties and three lead changes through three quarters, as neither team was able to separate from the other. The largest lead for either squad through 24 minutes was a six-point Spartan advantage when Kevin Patel hit back-to-back three-pointers late in the first quarter.

But the Falcons responded to close the period on a quick 5-0 spurt and then regained the lead at 16-14 on the first bucket of the second quarter. Salisbury didn’t trail the rest of the way, opening a 28-24 lead at halftime.

It was the Falcons’ defense that fueled their run, holding Southern Lehigh to just 10 and 11 points in the second and third quarters, respectively. The Spartans shot 11-for-31 (35 percent) from the field in the first half.

“Our defense the last two games has been the key,” Weaver said. “We forced teams into tough shots and did a great job on the boards. And to me that was the difference. Our offense is getting better. I think we executed well in the second half tonight.”

While Southern Lehigh tied the game on two occasions in the third quarter and once more on the first basket of the fourth quarter at 37-37, Salisbury’s offense rose to the challenge. Jones first splashed a three-pointer from the right wing to make it 40-37. Then, Tevon Weber (seven points, nine rebounds) found Jack Reichenbach on a baseline layup for two of his team-leading 14 points to increase the lead to 43-37 after completing the three-point play.

Jones, who started in place of Ryan Slutsky for the fourth game due to injury, scored a layup in transition to push Salisbury’s lead to 45-37 before Southern Lehigh got to within 48-45 three minutes later on two Lucas Hudson free throws.

That’s the closest Southern Lehigh got down the stretch after Dylan Belletiere hit four free throws in the fourth quarter and scored in 14 points for the Falcons.

Hudson paced the Spartans with 12, while Cassel pitched in 11 and eight rebounds.

“Our guys just played so hard,” Weaver said. “That’s what I’m most proud of, how hard we’ve been playing and the intensity and effort. To me, that’s 95 percent of basketball.”