After a 64-56 loss to Brandywine Heights in a nonconference game, Salisbury (1-1 Colonial, 1-3 overall) hosted Northwestern Lehigh and played a nail biter before falling to the Tigers 38-36 in a Colonial League matchup. Jack Foley put on a show against Brandywine, scoring 27 points, including nine in the fourth quarter.

The first half saw the lead change six times, with the Bullets holding a 32-25 halftime lead. Brandywine (3-1 overall) pushed its lead to as many as 12 in the third quarter and was up by 14 in the fourth quarter before a 10-2 run for the Falcons cut the lead to just six points.

In addition to the big night for Foley, Jake Zellin dropped in 10 points, Brady Leiner had nine and Jairo Suarez scored six for Salisbury.

“With a young team and only one guy who played meaningful minutes last year on a regular basis, we are just still learning the game, but we played hard” said coach Jason Weaver. “We struggled with their quickness a little bit and we battled back, but we have to be better defensively.”

The defense showed an improvement against Northwestern (1-2, 2-3), a team that hit nine three-pointers and scored 60 points against Lehighton in a win on Saturday. Salisbury held the Tigers to just two first-quarter points and led 6-2, before Northwestern found some offense in the second quarter and tied the game 13-13 going into the break. Salisbury got four third-quarter points from Tom Lovelidge and Josiah Day drained a key three-pointer to give the Falcons a 24-21 edge going into the final quarter, but foul shooting tipped the game to Northwestern’s favor.

The Tigers got to the free-throw line 11 times and hit nine of their shots over the final eight minutes to put the game away.

Lovelidge, who missed the Brandywine game with an illness, finished with a game-high 11 points and Jack Foley dropped in eight.

“Our effort was a little off in the loss to Oley (a 61-30 loss in the season opener), but our effort has been better since then,” said Weaver. “We need to work on getting the ball inside a little more. We give up too many offensive rebounds. It will all come down to defense for us.”

On the season, Foley is leading the team in points per game with 12.5, while Lovelidge is averaging 11.3 per game for the Falcons.