Salisbury’s struggles continued last Friday with a 49-36 loss to Northwestern Lehigh. The loss was the second in three games and the fifth in seven games for the Falcons, who dropped to 8-13 overall and 5-11 in the Colonial League.

Northwestern (10-10, 8-7) opened the game by commanding the boards with Deven Bollinger pulling down three rebounds in the first three-minutes of the game. The two teams were in an 11-11 stalemate after the first quarter, but Northwestern pulled out to a 25-19 halftime lead.

Salisbury came out strong to open the second half and scored five quick points to narrow the gap to one. Halfway through the third quarter, Quinn Warmkessel drove the lane and tied the game 28-28. The Tigers quickly regrouped and rebuilt their lead to six points by the end of the quarter.

Northwestern’s Sam Yadush scored the 1,000th point of his career with 5:55 left in the game when he hit a pull-up jumper from near the foul line to put Northwestern up 40-30. Yadush led all scorers on the night with 15, while Sean Snyder led Salisbury with 11 points.

“We did well as a team,” said Northwestern coach Billy Hallman. “A couple looks didn’t go our way, but defensively, we challenged them this week and we were able to hold them tonight, so that was great to see. We knew that they’re a physical team, so we told our guys to be ready.”

The Salisbury offense has been putting up points lately, having averaged just under 60 points per game in their last three games prior to meeting up with Northwestern.

Salisbury was coming off a win the night before when it pounded Palisades (5-16, 3-14) by a 57-28 margin. Prior to that game, they put up 63 in a losing cause against Palmerton (11-9, 8-7), who beat Salisbury 72-63 and one game earlier, they edged East Stroudsburg North (4-16, 3-11 EPC) in a 59-57 win. In the three games, Patrick Foley averaged 14 points per game, while Quintin Stephens averaged 10 per game for the Falcons. In the loss to Palmerton, Snyder led Salisbury with 15 points, followed by 13 from Warmkessel and 12 from Joe Panariello.