For the first time this summer, high school boys basketball returned to the outdoor courts after the first month-and-a-half of the Lehigh Valley summer league was played inside at the Whitehall School District schools.

Unfortunately, rain on the first day, Thursday, moved everything back inside, but the rest of the weekend was played at Cedar Beach as the Salisbury High School boys basketball team played in its first major tournament of the offseason at the Bash at the Beach Showcase last weekend.

The Falcons finished the double-elimination tournament 0-2, dropping both games they played. But head coach Jason Weaver knows there was more take-aways then just what was on the scoreboard.

“The guys played hard like they always do,” said Weaver, who had assistant coach Tommy Sylvester coaching the games. “A couple of close, competitive games that just fell the other way. That’s what summer is about. We’ll learn from the weekend and continue to get better each game with a newer group.”

In the opening night on Thursday, Salisbury fell behind early and could not climb out of the hole, losing by double-digits to Lehighton, 37-22. On Saturday, the Falcons came within one possession of their first victory, but were unable to finish, falling to Roberto Clemente 35-33 to finish off their tournament.

Salisbury knew it would look different next season, starting this summer as it graduated the entire starting lineup from last season and was going to be leaning on some younger, more inexperienced players going into 2022-23.

This offseason so far, there have been bumps in the road, but also some learning points that Weaver and the program can build upon.

“The summer has been a learning experience for us,” said Weaver. “We lost all five of our starters from last year and between this and the number of kids playing summer baseball we have had a very inexperienced team. Some nights, we are starting two or three incoming freshmen. The kids are playing hard, however we are inexperienced and smaller than every team we play.”

Salisbury is 1-6 overall in the Lehigh Valley summer league at Cedar Beach and will be back to that schedule this week.