Jack Reichenbach led all scorers with 21 points Saturday as Salisbury downed Northwestern 54-38 in a Colonial League contest.

Both Ryan Slutsky and Jaxon Costello scored 11 points for Salisbury as the Falcons improved their record to 6-2 in the Colonial League and 8-2 overall this season.

The two teams traded baskets and momentum throughout the first half, with the Falcons leading 30-25 at halftime, but the second half was a different story.

A combination of cold shooting from Northwestern and a tough defensive effort from Salisbury allowed the Falcons to stretch their lead.

Slutsky got particularly hot for Salisbury in the second half, scoring eight of his points in the final 16 minutes of the game.

“We didn’t change much, but we’re not always the most focused team, so we talked about things that we needed to do better defensively,” said Salisbury head coach Jason Weaver. “Offensively, we’re still a work in progress, but we wanted to focus to get the ball inside a little more in the second half and I think we did a better job of doing that and it opened some things up on the perimeter.

“Also, we wanted to push tempo and we got some stuff out of transition. We’re inconsistent and we need to get more consistent and a little bit more focused at times. I was happy with the effort on defense, especially in the second half, so that was huge.”

The defensive focus allowed Salisbury to shut down two players who were off to strong starts for Northwestern (2-6, 4-6). Both Sam Yadush and Robert Seyfried scored five points in the first half, but were shut down in the second half, with the two combining for just two points after halftime on a basket from Yadush.

The Falcons were noticeably better in their transition game in the second half, which is something that Weaver has stressed in his nine seasons with the team.

“We’re not the quickest team in the world, but just getting easy baskets is huge,” he said. “If we don’t have to work as hard on offense, that’s something that we want to do all the time, so we want to push the ball up the court. At least in my time here, that’s been very successful, so we’ll keep focused on that.”

Salisbury followed up its win over the Tigers with a 52-36 win over Pen Argyl (2-6, 5-7) Monday, giving the Falcons wins in three straight games by an average of just over 15 points per game. The relatively easy wins have allowed Weaver to go deeper on his bench as the team continues to try to fit players into roles that will help guarantee success.

“We’re still trying to figure out who works with who and we’re still trying to figure out who can give us something off the bench,” said Weaver. “Tommy Sylvester is a JV guy that we put in the last couple of games and he hasn’t played varsity, basically at all, and he gave us a spark up at Catty and he played well tonight. We’re trying to find something off the bench, because I’ve got guys who play really solid defense off the bench, but I’m looking for somebody who can maybe knock down a shot.”

Sylvester scored five points off the bench against the Rough Riders, including hitting a three-pointer.

The Falcons now face a stretch of three straight road games, playing at Southern Lehigh (7-2, 9-4) Wednesday, Palmerton (1-6, 1-8) on Thursday and Wilson (4-4, 6-6) next Tuesday.