With the number of wrestlers that Salisbury took to Catasauqua last week, Falcon head coach Eric Snyder couldn’t have expected much more than what played out.

The Falcons were without one of their seven wrestlers during last week’s dual meet against the Rough Riders. And two others unexpectedly didn’t come out for the team at the beginning of the season, leaving Snyder with just six varsity grapplers last Wednesday night.

While Salisbury didn’t end up in the win column, the Falcons did collect victories in four of the six contested bouts in a 60-22 defeat at Catasauqua High School. Four of those wins earned bonus points.

“I thought we had a legitimate chance to win all six matches that we had tonight,” Snyder said. “That didn’t happen, but we came out with four of six. Overall I thought we wrestled well.”

Three forfeits to open the match put the Rough Riders ahead 18-0 out of the gate. Then, one of Salisbury’s talented freshmen faced one of the area’s top grapplers at 126 pounds. John Samy came up short against Catasauqua junior Austin Brett via a first-period fall.

“The kid [Brett] is a pretty good kid that he wrestled,” Snyder said. “He’s at least a one-time regional qualifier, maybe even a two-time regional qualifier. [Samy] made one mistake that cost him pretty big, but I told him when he walked off the mat that was one of the better kids in his weight class. He can beat that kid. There’s no doubt in my mind that he can beat him.”

The Falcons were able to get on the board at 132 pounds when freshman Braedon Alder earned a 10-0 major decision over Cole Brown. Alder improved to 3-0 on the season with the win.

“He’s another talented freshman,” Snyder said. “He and John battle in the room every day and make each other better. Toby Linn is a freshman that hasn’t wrestled in a few years, since he was in sixth grade, and is 2-1 on the young season.”

The middle of the lineup is where Salisbury really shined. Devin Alder, one of two seniors on the team, picked up his first win of the season in his 145-pound match. He secured a single-leg takedown into a cradle move for a pin in the third period to defeat the Rough Riders’ Ben Langsdorf.

Linn wrestled at 152 pounds and took care of Catasauqua’s Dominic Melendez with a pin late in the second period. That got the Falcons within 30-16.

Salisbury was within 36-22 when Ben Krauss picked up a fall two bouts later at 170 pounds. Kyle Killiri wrestled at 220 pounds, and despite giving up weight to Catasauqua’s Zachary Scheirer, was competitive in his match.

“[Killiri] only weighed like 194 pounds or something like that today,” Snyder said. “He wants to wrestle at 220 pounds…I told him coming off the mat that the shots overall weren’t bad, but when you’re wrestling a kid that is 20-25 pounds bigger than him and gets flattened out, there’s not a whole lot you can do.”

Salisbury next faces Northwestern next Monday.