The Salisbury High School boys basketball team took a break from the Lehigh Valley summer league play and competed in its first major tournament of the summer last weekend at the Bash at the Beach, formerly played at Cedar Beach but now played at Whitehall High School.

The Falcons won their opening game 53-32 against Panther Valley on Thursday night in the first night of the tournament behind a game-high 12 points by Drew Petrie. But then Saturday morning, Salisbury suffered its first defeat to Holy Cross. Two hours later, the tournament run ended with a defeat to Milton Hershey.

“We played great vs. Panther Valley,” said Falcon head coach Jason Weaver. “We had a balanced scoring effort from all of the guys and Julian Makoul and Keaton Frye played great interior defense for us. Both ends of the floor played at a very high level.”

The Falcons were able to win the opening game, but then hit a rough patch in back-to-back games against quality opponents.

“In our game against Holy Cross their size and three-point shooting were a problem for us,” Weaver said. “We got down by as many as 15 points at the end of the first quarter and we were never able to recover.

“We played much better defensively against Milton Hershey and had a chance to win and played some man and 2-3 zone defense,” said Weaver. “We led at halftime and then tied the game on two Julian Makoul foul shots with seven seconds left to play. We forced them to throw up an airball and one of their players grabbed the loose ball and put it in as time expired. It was a tough loss, but I was glad how we responded after the Holy Cross game and battled well against their size and athleticism.”

Salisbury is a on a four-game win streak in the LV summer league and is 5-1 overall. Action resumes this week with games Tuesday and Thursday.