Northwestern’s win over Salisbury wasn’t exactly ugly, but the Tigers certainly made their share of mistakes, giving coach Josh Snyder and his staff a lot of work to do as they prepare for Palisades in week three.

Salisbury took a quick lead thanks to a Northwestern miscue and led 5-0 at the half, but the Tigers did all of the scoring in the second half to leave Salisbury High School with a 19-5 win.

“Extremely bothered by the penalties and the long snaps,” said Snyder. “I told them in the team huddle that I love the heart and that we played hard all night long, but it’s just discipline, a lack of discipline.

“I feel like we didn’t do a great job coaching during the week leading up, if our kids were going offsides on offense three or four times, the holding penalties, the snap over the head and a couple dropped passes. We’re going to work hard on coaching these guys up a little better this week.”

Northwestern (2-0) fell behind 2-0 when a snap to punter Trevor Cunningham sailed over his head and through the end zone resulting in a safety. Later in the game, there would be another bad snap on a punt, but Cunningham was able to play the ball and get the punt off. Just before the end of the first half, Oliver Stewart nailed a line-drive kick through the uprights to give the Falcons a 5-0 lead.

The Tigers offense started to focus more on getting the ball to Trevor Cunningham, which led to a six-yard touchdown pass from Deven Bollinger to Cunningham, who caught five passes for 78 yards. The emergence of Cunningham opened some opportunities for other players, including Caleb Clymer, who pulled in Bollinger’s second touchdown pass, this one for 14 yards.

“We just settled them down at halftime,” said Snyder. “We didn’t scream. We didn’t holler. I just said to myself at halftime, ‘we’ve got to get number-two (Trevor Cunningham) the football.’ He’s our best player. He’s the best player on the field most nights and we’ve got to find a way just to force it into him.”

Senior running back Tyler Foster also found a higher gear in the second half and ran for a 37-yard touchdown run and then added a 40-yard run to push the Tigers deep into Falcons territory.

“There was great blocking on that run,” said Foster. “Everyone held their blocks after I cut across. Matt Shetayh did a great job pulling off of his block on the back side and I just ran hard.”

Foster finished with 119 yards on 13 carries and came up big defensively when he intercepted a pass from Salisbury quarterback Cameron Vaka as the Falcons (1-1) looked to drive down the field and cut into the Tigers lead.

Foster had to wait his turn behind Harry Hall at running back, but this season, Foster is the go-to back and he even took over Hall’s old number-four jersey. “I just like number-four and I like the tight jersey fit on me,” said Foster.

On the downside, the Tigers were penalized 48 times for 484 yards last season. Through their first two games this season, they’ve been penalized 12 times for 100 yards. Snyder believes they can fix that as they develop more confidence and maturity.

“These are young guys and sometimes they get a little anxious and they want to make that big play,” he said. “But they have to understand that paying attention to the little things can be just as important as those big things. They’ll get that and down the road, that’s not going to hurt us.”

Northwestern finally has their home Friday against Palisades after starting with two road games. Palisades beat Wilson 14-13 Friday night, to move to 1-1 on the season.

“I don’t remember the last time I was associated with a team that started away, away, home,” said Snyder. “It’s going to be nice to be on our own field next week.”