By battling throughout the game, the Salisbury Falcons gave themselves a chance to win at the buzzer against Northwestern Lehigh last Thursday. The final play was drawn up and executed well, but as was the case throughout much of the game, the final shot just didn’t fall.

Just 24 seconds before the final shot, Quintin Stephens had drained a three-pointer to bring Salisbury to within two points. Northwestern turned the ball over, giving the Falcons their final shot at a win.

As the horn sounded in the background, a three-pointer from Stephens in the near corner bounced off the far side of the rim and had gone just far enough that the momentum carried it past the basket. Had things gone differently, the shot would have given Salisbury the win. Instead, Northwestern got out of Salisbury Township with a 40-38 win.

“We executed well, because we had two guys who could have taken that shot,” said coach Jason Weaver. “Quintin had a pretty good look and that’s a shot that he usually makes, but he just couldn’t get it to fall.”

After the two teams spent the first three quarters shifting the lead back and forth, Northwestern led 32-31 coming into the final quarter. Salisbury got an early bucket from Kyle Artis to go up by one, but from there, both defenses took over.

Northwestern finally found an edge when Ethan Lazarus and Cade Christopher hit on back-to-back trips down the floor, leaving the Falcons trailing 36-33 with 2:12 left in regulation. Quinn Warmkessel brought the Falcons to within one, but Northwestern’s Nick Henry and Dylan Witkowski hit foul shots to move the game to 40-35 in favor of the Tigers before Stephens drained his three-pointer to make it 40-38.

Northwestern had just one foul coming into the final quarter and was able to interrupt the Falcons offense by using fouls to make them restart their offense.

“They had so many fouls to give that we kept losing a second or two here and there and didn’t have much time to set anything up as far as getting good looks,” said Weaver.

Throughout the game, both teams took turns sharing the momentum, with Salisbury holding the lead through much of the first half, including at the end of the first two quarters. Northwestern edged its way back from two seven-point deficits in the game, but wouldn’t see the lead get larger than two until the final two minutes of the game.

The first time that Salisbury led by seven was midway into the first quarter, but The Tigers went on a 9-0 run to take a lead with 1:43 left in the quarter. Daniel Scialla hit for two and Stephens then sank two foul shots to hand the lead back to Salisbury at 15-13. A low-scoring second quarter had Salisbury leading 23-21 at halftime.

Salisbury’s Stephens and Kenyo Herrera took over in the third quarter and combined for eight points to put the Tigers down 31-24 midway through the quarter. Just as Salisbury had two players take over earlier, Northwestern’s Lazarus and Andres Garrido scored eight unanswered points to give the Tigers a 32-31 edge going into the final eight minutes of the game.

“We just couldn’t get some shots to fall for us throughout the game,” Weaver said. “Their offense was more deliberate, and we never were able to get into a good tempo and when we had some opportunities, we weren’t able to take advantage of them.”

Stephens led all scorers with 19 points, while Lazarus collected 13 for Northwestern Lehigh. Stephens also collected seven rebounds for the Falcons.

The Falcons didn’t stay down long as they went to Northern Lehigh the next night and downed the Bulldogs 65-32, evening their record at 2-1 in the Colonial League and 3-3 overall.