It was just one of those days for Northwestern when it traveled to Salisbury (5-2, 7-3) to take on the Falcons Saturday. After trailing by just three at the half, the Tigers shooting went cold and they came out of Salisbury High School with a 54-38 loss to Salisbury.

Salisbury’s Jack Reichenbach led all scorers with 21 points, while Ryann Slutsky and Jaxon Costello chipped in with 11 points each. For Northwestern, Trevor Cunningham and Deven Bollinger each scored eight points to lead the Tigers, with Sam Yadush picking up seven points.

Robby Seyfried came out strong, with five first-quarter points as the Tigers fell behind 11-9 after eight minutes of play. After that strong first quarter, Salisbury started to key on Seyfried a little more and was able to contain him, but could still only build its lead to 23-20 by halftime.

“We’ve talked about having a good effort and a good attitude and getting into the game, and I think today we came with that attitude and it showed,” said Northwestern head coach Billy Hallman. “Defensively, we competed from the opening tip and that’s what we’ve got to do to keep ourselves in games and eventually, the offense will come around.”

The strong defensive play continued in the second half, but suddenly, Northwestern just couldn’t get a shot to fall. The ball control was strong and they had opportunities, but went cold offensively. Eventually, Salisbury was able to mount more offense and held the Tigers to just five third quarter points, pushing the lead to 36-25.

The heat never did come back on for Northwestern’s shooting and Salisbury meanwhile went on a streak that saw them take over the game.

“We just struggled to make a shot today,” said Hallman. “We got good looks, shots that we wanted, we just couldn’t put the ball in the basket today. It was one of our better defensive efforts of the year, but it came down to scoring.”

Northwestern tried different combinations and got the ball to a number of players, but none of them could get on an offensive roll to help cut into the lead against a strong offensive team that had averaged over 60 points per game coming into the meeting, but was kept in check by the Tigers’ defense throughout the game. The Tigers were also able to play with a team that focuses on running the court and playing an up-tempo style of basketball.

Northwestern has now lost three straight games to drop their Colonial League record to 2-5 and their overall record to 4-5 on the season.