The Salisbury football team lost 49-18 to Tamaqua last Friday night and is still searching for its first win since 2021. While the wins aren’t coming, head coach Andy Cerco sees positive signs from the team.

“We’re doing good things here,” he said. “That’s the frustrating thing for our kids. They know we have so many good components to our program.”

The Falcons fell behind early again as Tamaqua (1-4) scored on its first six possessions of the game to build a 31-0 lead at halftime.

The Falcons kept the game from reaching a mercy-rule score by forcing a Blue Raider punt on the first possession of the second half. They got the ball back and went 70 yards in six plays for a touchdown as Jamanni Cruz scored on a 15-yard run.

Salisbury scored on three of it second-half possessions. A three-play, 30-yard drive was capped by a 4-yard Jacob Bucchin run to make get make the score 31-12 late in the third quarter.

“Our kids demonstrated a great deal of character in the second half to stop them defensively,” said Cerco. “We had to do that. We could have given up. That didn’t happen. They played hard.”

After a Tamaqua touchdown drive that used up 10 minutes of the clock, Cruz returned the ensuing kick off 94 yards for a touchdown to cap the scoring.

The Raiders might have come into the game winless, but they had a few players return from injury Friday night and are getting better each week.

“We thought we took a good step forward last week,” Tamaqua head coach Sam Bonner said of a 38-15 loss to North Schuylkill. “It’s nice to say, but it’s still a loss. This week we said we wanted to come out, take care of business early. I thought our guys did a good job, came out right off the bat, came off a long bus trip and I thought played a heck of a first quarter, first half of football.”

Friday was Bonner’s 100th win as Blue Raider head coach. Bradley Whalen led the winning effort with 81 rushing yards on eight carries while scoring two touchdowns. He was one of six Tamaqua players to rush for touchdowns.

Raider quarterback Luke Kane threw just four passes in the game, completing three of them for 44 yards. The Raiders gained 226 yards on the ground in the win.

The Falcons were led once again by Jason St. Leger, who ran for 71 yards on four carries. Derek Trinidad carried the ball 13 times for 58 yards as the team posted 161 yards on the ground. Bucchin completed one of eight passes in the game.

Jordan Tocci and St. Leger had 11 tackles each for Salisbury, while George Spann had 10 and Trinidad made nine.

Friday was Shirt off your Back Night at Salisbury.

“Every player, every cheerleader, and every band member who is a senior selected somebody from this school district – there were middle school teachers, there were elementary school teachers, custodians – to recognize. Those are good things that we have going on,” said Cerco.

Salisbury travels to Northern Lehigh this Friday to take on the Bulldogs.