The Salisbury boys basketball team hit a bit of a bump in the road over the past week as it ran into a pair of strong teams in Saucon Valley and Northwestern Lehigh. Both games ended in defeat for the Falcons, but the team bounced back Monday night with a win over Palmerton.

The toughest competition came from Northwestern (10-1 Colonial, 13-2 overall) and the Tigers, who are currently ranked second in both the Colonial League and the 4A classification of District 11, took early control of the game and rolled to a 77-42 win over Salisbury (6-4, 9-5).

Having a size and speed advantage helped Northwestern out-rebound the Falcons to get 12 second chance points and picked up eight points off steals in the game.

“We’re still a young team,” said Salisbury head coach Jason Weaver. “We’ve played pretty well defensively other than tonight and coming into this game we were holding teams in the 40s. Even when our offense wasn’t great we were able to pull out a couple close games because of our defense.

“We just weren’t prepared for their speed and quickness because you can’t replicate that in practice. It seemed like they didn’t really have to run an offense because they beat us down the court for layups.”

When Northwestern was not able to use its speed, the Tigers’ ability to hit three-pointers came into play as they knocked down nine shots from beyond the arc.

“When we would close out somebody, they would just kick it out to another guy and knock down a three,” said Weaver.

With Salisbury trailing 51-29 to open the second half, Steven Lozada worked to help bring Salisbury back into the game as he recorded 11 of his game-high points in the second half with nine of them coming in the third quarter.

Lozada also scored 14 in the loss to Saucon Valley (8-4, 9-4), just a point behind Julian Makhoul, who scored 15 against the Panthers.

After the game, Weaver cautioned his team against letting the back-to-back losses turn into an extended streak and with a quick turnaround from the loss to Northwestern, Salisbury was back on the court against Palmerton and showed no sign of hanging their heads as they beat the Blue Bombers 49-35.

Another pair of tough opponents are on the schedule for this week as the Falcons have road games against Notre Dame of Green Pond (10-1, 11-4) and Wilson (8-4, 10-4) and are not home until Tuesday against Moravian Academy (3-7, 3-8).

“I’m happy with how our team is playing, overall,” said Weaver. “They share the ball well and they play well together. They’re great kids to coach and there are no discipline issues, there are no grade issues, they’re all good students. There are just some things we need to get a little better at, maybe be a little quicker, and a little stronger. I liked the way we showed some fight in the second half. I thought that was a great sign.”