The Salisbury boys basketball team traveled to New Tripoli last Friday to take on a Northwestern Lehigh team that’s busy making up games that were postponed during the Tiger football team’s state playoff run.

Playing its third game in four days, Northwestern used its size and strength to counter the Falcons’ outside shooting ability in a 59-49 win.

Tiger big men Shane Marth (6-foot-5) and Mason Bollinger (6-foot-2) scored 19 and 17 points, respectively.

“Northwestern is good,” said Salisbury head coach Jason Weaver, whose team heads into the holiday break at 4-3 overall and 2-3 in Colonial League games. “Their size was a factor for us. We really struggled against their big guys inside.

Offensively we played all right. Sometimes we get a little stagnant and we stand around a little bit. I’m happy with us. Do we have to keep getting better, keep improving? Definitely. But I’m happy where we are.”

Bollinger scored Northwestern’s first six points, but the Falcons were matching them basket-for-basket and took their first lead of the game when Steven Lozada converted a three-point play with two and a half minutes left in first quarter.

A Brady Leiner basket to end the first quarter, and three-pointers by Drew Petrie and Leiner to start the second period put the Falcons ahead 17-8 before the Tigers started to claw their way back.

Marth scored 11 points in the second quarter as the Tigers retook the lead with just over a minute left in the first half. A Bollinger three-pointer to end the period gave Northwestern at 31-26 lead heading into halftime.

The Falcons cut the lead to 37-36 on a Leiner three-pointer late in the third quarter. Baskets by Petrie and Bryan Gonzalez tied the game at 41-41 heading into the fourth quarter.

A couple Salisbury turnovers early in the fourth quarter, and a three-pointer from the Tigers’ Josh Wambold helped Northwestern (4-2 overall, 4-1 Colonial League) build the lead back up to five points before Jake Zellin made a three to cut the lead to 46-44.

A pair of Marth baskets stretched the Tiger lead to 50-44 with just over five minutes left and Northwestern made four of seven free throws in the final four minutes to seal the win.

Salisbury will look to get back in the win column when they face Saucon Valley in a nonleague game Wednesday in the first round of the Salisbury Holiday Tournament. With four wins before Christmas, the Falcons are on pace to improve upon last year’s 5-17 campaign.

“It’s been a major improvement,” said Weaver. “The guys are working hard. The attitude is positive. It’s a good group of guys to coach and I think we’re going to get better.”

The Falcons shot the ball well against Northwestern, making 17 of 37 shots from the field and nine of 19 three-pointers. Lozada and Zellin led a balanced scoring effort with 10 points each, while Thomas Lovelidge and Leiner had eight each.

The Falcons faced a tough match up against a Northwestern team that isn’t just taller, but is also bigger than Salisbury. The Falcons’ tallest player that took the court Friday was Leiner at 6-3. They rely more on outside shooting than getting the ball in the paint.

“We have 10 or 11 guys that can shoot, which is nice,” said Weaver. “We don’t have a real post presence, which is the other side of things but we do have a lot of guys that can shoot the ball.

“It’s tough for us. We’ve been playing a lot more zone than I’ve played in the past. We have to because we get in mismatches size-wise, not just height-wise but bulk-wise.”

The holiday tournament is slated to tip off Wednesday at 5 p.m. when Oley and Quakertown meet in the opener. Winners will play for the tournament title Thursday around 6:45 p.m., while Wednesday’s losing teams will meet in a 5 p.m. consolation game.