Somewhere in Salisbury there’s a self-destruct mechanism. The recently completed baseball season there shows the Falcons are a better outfit than their 7-13 record indicates, and that losing is undoubtedly a team effort.

First-year manager Justin Aungst is still muttering to himself about the one - or ones - that got away. The season’s first half featured more Falcon errors - sometimes six or eight in one game - than Aungst could shake out of a stick. The season also included a soul-plundering 10-game losing streak.

“They competed during that streak and that’s hard to do,” said Aungst. “I’m proud of that.”

The defense improved to so-so in the season’s second half, but a lack of pitching control and clutch hitting left the soft-spoken manager to assume he was always holding hand grenade without a pin.

“It’s been the same pretty much all year,” said Aungst after a season-ending loss to Southern Lehigh. “We compete in every single game we play in, to some capacity, and then unfortunately we find an inning or two where things don’t go our way and we make a couple of mistakes.”

Mistakes aside, the Falcons had a couple of good pitchers. Junior Tim Schware was on the beam all year, giving up 16 earned runs and amassing 67 strike outs in 41.3 innings. Senior Quinn Warmkessel gave up plenty of hits (38), but only 20 earned runs in 28 innings.

The Falcon offense was respectable. Shortstop Hunter Rothrock led the way by hitting .293 and stealing 12 bases. Warmkessel was a .304 hitter and led the team in doubles with six. Maybe the biggest offensive surprise was freshman Andrew Grejda, who hit .311 with four doubles. As a team, the Falcons hit .250.

The best news is that from the season’s start to end, the young Falcons improved.

“Defensively we played so tight in the beginning,” said Aungst. “They felt like they had to be perfect. Being so young, they never played on big fields like this. So throughout the season finding guys positions where they’d be comfortable was a challenge as we never saw half the kids play.”

Aungst also led a group of solid citizens.

“Off the field we did not have one issue,” he said of his players. “We did not have one issue with grades. Not one issue with getting into trouble at school. So I cannot complain about that and I am beyond proud about that.”

In the offseason the team’s experienced players will compete in American Legion ball, while the younger players - the team’s majority - will play Connie Mack.

“Half of our team only played 20 games on a 90-foot base field and never threw off a mound before,” said the manager. “So we need to continue to get those reps and continue to bat against live pitching. Also, hopefully getting stronger in the weight room and come back ready to compete next year.”