Saturday’s 3-0 victory over Bethlehem Catholic was a familiar sight for the Salisbury boys’ soccer team through four games. That win over the Golden Hawks was the Falcons’ third shutout victory in four matches to open their fall campaign.

It goes without saying that the defense has clearly done it’s part through mid-September. Salisbury has allowed just one goal in 320 minutes of action. That goal came against Pen Argyl last week in a 9-1 win, Salisbury’s first and only Colonial League match through Saturday.

“We’ve been pretty strong defensively,” Allinson said. “I haven’t really had many issues with the way we’ve been playing so far that way. Offensively we have finally gotten players back, and we’re able to try and figure out what we need to do with the personnel that we have. We’re starting to click a little bit.

“You got [goalkeeper] Tyler Keller back there as well. He’s a highly acrobatic goalie with his diving and athleticism. We just have to keep him healthy, which is at times a little hard to do because he puts himself out there. Defensively I think we’re pretty squared away.”

Keller was a Colonial League First Team all-star for Allinson a year ago that anchored a strong defensive unit, and he’s back doing it in 2016. He’s also getting some help with the back line of Sebastian Buckley, John Yurconic, Yazid Darawsheh and Collin Fairchild, who moved back from the midfield position).

That crew has helped Salisbury dominate in the early going. The Falcons’ season was a 6-0 shutout over East Penn Conference foe Whitehall. A couple days later, the Falcons came away with a 2-0 non-league victory over Notre Dame-East Stroudsburg.

“We’ve beaten two East Penn Conference teams, but we’ve got the stronger EPC teams that we have to play coming up in the next two Saturdays,” Allinson said. “Hopefully we can get through those. I think we match up pretty good against Nazareth. We’ll have to see about Allen.”

Saturday’s game will be at Nazareth at 11:30 a.m.

On the other end of the field, the offense is coming along with each passing match. Salisbury is starting to regain its full strength on the attack, and a number of talented strikers have benefited in the early going.

Ethan Heydt, also a Colonial League First Team all-star last fall, has scored six goals thus far. He tallied two each against Becahi, Pen Argyl and Whitehall. Patrick Adams and James Hadinger have also been solid contributors on the opponents’ end of the field.

“We can run like we did last year with five midfielders,” Allinson said. “We can run with four and then push another guy up, so it’s still evolving.

“We’ve had five penalty kick goals out of these four games. I think that is our technical ability and getting into the box. We’re getting PKs, which is good.”

Before Salisbury squares up against its third EPC foe of the season, it will have to take care of some business in the Colonial League. The Falcons host Notre Dame (Green Pond) and travel to Northern Lehigh on back-to-back days in the middle of this week before that showdown with the Blue Eagles.

The Falcons’ real test, however, will come the following week, which includes games with Northwestern and Allen.

“We’ll get the Southern Lehighs, the Moravians and Northwesterns,” Allinson said. “I’m really more concerned about Palisades. I’d like to see what they look like against us because that’s going to be our formidable opponent in this PIAA realignment. The next two or three weeks we’ll get a very opportunistic look at how we’re going to do.”