The Colonial League boys’ basketball championship is set for Friday night at Freedom High School, culminating the six-team tournament that began last Saturday.

Unfortunately for Salisbury (9-8), the Falcons were the top team left out of the league playoffs. A win against Southern Lehigh in its regular season finale would have given Salisbury the sixth and final seed, but a tough four-point loss left the Falcons on the outside looking in.

“I think we were down 11-2 at one point,” Weaver said. “We came out in a zone and they just started hitting shots. We went man-to-man then and started coming back.

“We got to the point where we were maybe up one, but we never were up more than one. Right before halftime, we give up the last five points of the second quarter, so we’re down five at halftime.”

Bangor (10-8) defeated Pen Argyl the following day, 75-36, to lock up the final playoff spot. Salisbury actually defeated Bangor during the regular season, but the Slaters, which played one more league game than the Falcons, finished with one more league win.

The Slaters are one of seven teams in the East Division that had an extra league game, and it benefited Bangor despite losing the head-to-head matchup against Salisbury.

“It can help or hurt you with the extra game,” Weaver said. “But Bangor had a week where they beat Notre Dame (Green Pond), Wilson and Southern Lehigh. That week got them into the playoffs. Their point guard did not play against us, and he came out and they had a great week.”

Notre Dame (Green Pond), Wilson and Southern Lehigh all earned league playoff spots, including top seed Southern Lehigh, who’s only loss was to Bangor. Salisbury, on the other hand, was 0-4 against those teams in the regular season.

Despite coming up short on its league playoff goal, Salisbury’s season isn’t over just yet. The Falcons qualified for the upcoming District 11 Class 4A playoffs after missing out on that stage in each of the past few seasons.

And Weaver doesn’t think the Falcons are far off from those teams that qualified for the Colonial League tournament either.

“I think we’re right there with a bunch of teams,” Weaver said. “We’re right on that bubble. We played Palmerton tough twice. We played Moravian close. We played Southern Lehigh close both times. Against the top six teams that made the playoffs, Bangor is the only team that we beat. Against the other teams behind us, we went 8-1.”

Salisbury’s likely opponent in districts will be Wilson, but things could change in the upcoming days depending on how league tournaments play out.

“It’s probably 80 percent going to be Wilson,” Weaver said. “Wilson gave us trouble. That was a game that we came out and were up like 19-9, and then they started pressuring us. We had some bad turnovers. The thought is if we can handle the ball a little bit better, we can compete with them.

“We wanted to have the season move on from the regular season. These guys haven’t gone to the playoffs yet. We accomplished a goal of getting into districts and fell short of leagues, but I think we played really hard. They are competing night-in and night-out. We’re battling people all the time.”