For the first time in a number of years, the Salisbury girls’ basketball team didn’t take part in the Stellar “Catch A Rising Star” Basketball Showcase at Cedar Beach.

The Lady Falcons will also be absent from this week’s SportsFest “A-Town Throwdown” tournament.

Many of the Colonial League’s teams may have been missing from play this past weekend, but two other conference squads made a name for themselves in the 16-team Stellar girls tournament last weekend.

In fact, Northwestern had one of the best runs of any team in the tournament. The Lady Tigers won three of their five games, and were one of the final teams playing by advancing to Sunday morning.

Their run eventually came to an end against Allen, 43-23, a team that went on to defeat Parkland for the championship.

After disposing Boyertown’s JV team on Friday, Northwestern came up five points shy of Parkland (the other championship game team) in the winner’s bracket. But consecutive wins over Upper Perk (40-11) and Boyertown’s varsity team (39-28) kept their hopes for a Sunday showing alive.

“I said the goal this week is to keep getting better, to improve and develop our players,” head Northwestern head coach Chris Deutsch said. “Parkland is Parkland. They play well together. They shoot the ball well, and they move the ball. We were ahead by one with two minutes left. It was going back and forth, and they just made a couple more plays at the end.”

Bangor was the other Colonial League squad in the tournament and found success as well. The Lady Slaters took down Dieruff’s JV team to open the tournament on Friday at Cedar Beach before coming up short against Whitehall, one of the final four teams standings.

The Lady Slaters continued their run on Saturday morning when the tournament was moved indoors to Whitehall High School due to weather implications. And after a win over Boyertown’s JV squad, Stroudsburg ended Bangor’s run at Stellar.

Next week’s SportsFest tournament will open on Thursday back at Cedar Beach. Unlike the Stellar double-elimination tournament, SportsFest will feature a pool-style tournament with the winners earning a berth in Sunday’s single-elimination tournament.