Last week’s Salisbury girls soccer game against Northwestern was a lot like many of the Falcons’ games have been this season.

The Falcons entered the game short-handed with several players missing because of injuries. They lost some more to injury during the game, yet anyone able to take the field persevered and put up their best effort against one of the Colonial League’s top teams.

Salisbury kept the Tigers scoreless for almost 20 minutes to start the game. But Northwestern scored five times in the final nine minutes of the first half to take a 6-0 lead en route to an 8-0 win.

“We had a bad 7-8 minute stretch at the end of the first half and that’s what killed us,” said Salisbury head coach Rick Babyak.

The Falcons entered the game with only a few subs and then some injuries during the game resulted in them playing most of the latter part of the second half without any.

“We’ve been up against it with that all season,” said Babyak. “We get a player back and then two or three others go out. It’s been a rough season for that. I had zero subs by the end. I’m going to give credit to every player that went out there and played. A lot of them are hurt too and they’re out there giving it their best. They played with a lot of heart today.”

Babyak said his seniors are acting as coaches on the field because players are being forced into action that have little or no varsity experience. Seniors Chase Watto, Mona Pyssame Shields and Katherine Medina could be heard instructing and encouraging their young teammates during the game.

For the first 20 minutes of the game Salisbury was holding strong against a team that’s lost just one game this season and had scored 27 goals in it’s previous four games.

The Tigers (14-1-1 overall, 10-0-1 Colonial League) controlled possession for most of the first half, but they couldn’t punch in a goal until Katie Browning finally got one past junior keeper Hannah Kamp with 20:07 left in the first half.

It took over 10 minutes for the Tigers to get another shot past Kamp, who made 42 saves in the game. But Northwestern kept coming, scoring four more goals before the end of the first half.

The second half was much of the same. The Tigers kept coming at Kamp with shots, but couldn’t get one through until the 23rd minute of the half.

“She was amazing,” said Northwestern head coach Jordan Smith. “That’s something I told the kids before the game. We weren’t going to get any cheapies. We were going to have to work for good shots. We peppered her early on and she held her own. She was fantastic.”

The loss drops Salisbury to 3-10-1 overall this season and 2-7-1 in Colonial League play. The Falcons are scheduled to finish off the regular season with games against Southern Lehigh (Tuesday, Oct. 12), Liberty (Oct. 14) and Bangor (Oct. 16.).