The Salisbury High School boys basketball team had a strong start to the Bash at the Beach tournament last weekend at Cedar Beach. The Falcons won their first two games before two Colonial League foes, including the eventual champion, got in their way and eliminated them in the double-elimination style tournament.

Salisbury opened the event with a victory over Coventry Christian on Friday night and then was right back out on the court Saturday morning and took down Lehighton.

Just two hours after the win against the Indians, the Falcons ran into a buzz saw that was Palmerton, a team that ended up hoisting the small school division trophy. Later that night, Northwestern beat the Falcons to end Salisbury’s weekend.

Head coach Jason Weaver was on vacation, but assistant coach and head JV coach, Chris Basile, ran the team and was pleased overall with the performance of his team over the entirety of the weekend.

“We played well in the victories, but the heat seemed to take the energy from us as the tournament went deeper,” said Basile. “We continue to face the same opponents as the summer league and regular season, which is not particularly helpful to us as a school. However, the more we can play together as a team and continue to mesh as one unit, it is always beneficial.

“We have a nice mix of older and younger players we will be relying on that have not necessarily played together that much. So, the more they can get used to what each can do the better we should become. This tournament provided us an opportunity to see that and evaluate how far we have come so far heading into the season and what work needs to be done.”

The entire roster seemed to have a hand in good things during the four games and contributed in some way or another.

“Brady Leiner played extremely well, especially considering he is coming off a broken foot earlier this spring,” Basile said. “His length on the boards was much needed, as well as the scoring he contributed on the offensive end. Drew Petrie also continues to shoot extremely well and played solidly the entire weekend. Jack Foley and Stephen Lozado contributed nicely in controlling the game in the backcourt and keeping our offense running. Jack continued to improve in our spread offense both from the outside and inside while Stephen is catching up in his shooting after an extended vacation but did a good job getting to the rim.

“It won’t take long for his shooting to return as he is a hard worker. Bryan Gonzales and Julian Makoul did an outstanding job defensively covering much taller opponents. They were also effective on both the offensive and defensive glass.”

Playing against quality league competition in the Blue Bombers and Tigers, while playing three games in the heat on Saturday all were factors going against the Falcons, they still played hard and showed their coaching staff promise.

“Palmerton and Northwestern Lehigh will once again be strong competition for us in the upcoming season,” said Basile. “Hopefully those losses will help our kids realize the work that needs to be done to become competitive against them. The heat seemed to sap our energy in both those games as we were somewhat lackluster in each. Defensively we were getting beat down the floor giving up too many fast break points.

“Perhaps the emotional win against Lehighton winning on a buzzer beater expended more energy than we wanted. Playing three games in one day seemed to take its toll on us. Regardless, it shows the amount of effort we need to put into each and every game and that we cannot take a break defensively at all if we want to be competitive against those schools. It is a positive note that we were able to win our first two games and be in the winner’s bracket. Our next hurdle is to be able to continue to win and remain there until the championship game.”

Salisbury still has big games ahead as the Falcons will take on Upper Perkiomen in the Lehigh Valley Summer League semifinals and then will play in the Atown Throwdown the last weekend in July.

“Hopefully the guys will look on this weekend as a positive experience as well as a learning experience,” Basile said. “There is much to take away from both the win against Lehighton and our decision-making and clock management as well as our losses and what we need to improve on to become more competitive. It gave them all an opportunity to work on their individual skills and compare them against other schools in the Valley. Hopefully they also used this as a bonding experience to get used to each other’s abilities and become stronger as a single unit as we continue to improve.”