Salisbury was going to be traveling far regardless of Friday’s outcome against Saucon Valley. The Falcons would rather have to travel north to Scranton than south to Philadelphia.

The Falcons got their wish.

The No. 3 seed in the District 11 Class 4A tournament, Salisbury’s ticket to the state tournament was already clinched heading into Friday. But now the Falcons know where their first-round game will be after a 75-48 victory over No. 4 Saucon Valley in the district third-place game.

The Falcons will travel up north to take on Scranton Prep on Saturday. Tipoff is set for 5:30 p.m. at Marywood University.

“It was either go to Philadelphia or Scranton, so I’m sure we’d much rather go to Scranton than Philadelphia,” said Ryan Slutsky, who scored a season-high 19 points. “We wanted to win for that. And it was our seniors’ last game in the Lehigh Valley. We came out and played hard.”

A 15-12 Salisbury lead after the first quarter grew to double digits by halftime and to 20 points in the third quarter.

While the Falcons held a sizable lead at 48-38 early in the third quarter, it was an impressive stretch from Jack Reichenbach that helped Salisbury break free. The Falcon junior, who scored 11 of his 17 points in that third quarter, hit back-to-back from three-point range to stretch the Falcon advantage to 54-38.

That lead was their largest of the game at the time and Salisbury did not look back.

“I’ve been a little off on the three-pointers in the past few games,” Reichenbach said. “But I just kept shooting them and today they were going in, which was great for me.”

Reichenbach then stole a Panther pass in the back court and was fouled on a fast break attempt. His two free throws stretched it to 56-38, and another shot from long range shortly later gave Salisbury a 59-40 heading into the fourth.

Saucon Valley opened the fourth with a field goal to get within 59-42, but that’s as close as the Panthers got the rest of the way.

“We shot the ball very well,” Slutsky said. “I think we just played with a lot more energy than we did the other night against Jim Thorpe.”

The Panthers received a team-high 21 points from Will Smith, but no other player scored in double figures.

The Falcons had a solid mix of scoring from three of their top scorers in Reichenbach (17), Slutsky (19) and Jaxon Costello, who controlled the paint and finished with 22 points and 16 rebounds. It was a different scene than a couple days prior when the Falcons came up short, 48-35, against Jim Thorpe in the District 11 semifinals.

Against the No. 6 seeded Olympians, who later fell to eventual champion and top-seeded Bethlehem Catholic, Salisbury struggled to generate any rhythm offensively against Jim Thorpe’s 2-3 zone defense. The Falcons had not scored below 44 points in any game this season until that defeat to Jim Thorpe.

Friday’s victory was a big confidence boost after one of Salisbury’s worst losses of the season.

“We played our worst game of the year by far,” Slutsky said. “We didn’t have much energy. We didn’t shoot the ball very well at all. We couldn’t get the ball to Jaxon really because they were playing a 2-3 zone, and he is our main guy when it comes to scoring.”

“It’s a big confidence boost after the Jim Thorpe game,” Reichenbach said. “That was kind of a letdown. It was just nice to come out and handle business, and do what we had to do and beat them so we can get a better seed for states.”

This will be the second consecutive season that Salisbury has qualified for states. The Falcons fell to District 3’s Bishop McDevitt, a Class 3A state semifinalist, in 2016.