Sink or swim.

Salisbury’s girls basketball team was tossed into District 11 Class 3A waters Thursday evening, and the order was taller than it could handle.

Pine Grove’s program is quite far ahead right now of the upstart and youthful Falcons. And it showed by night’s end with a 53-17 against the talented and seasoned Cardinals.

Falcon head coach Dan Reichenbach knew the long bus ride was going to be a shot in the dark for his squad.

“We’ve got soccer players who are trying to play basketball,” he said of his roster. “Pine Grove is a good team. They’ve got a couple of talented girls and it was hard for us to handle.”

That surfaced early and often, on both accounts. Pine Grove blurted to a 14-1 lead in less than five minutes. The Cardinals infused their will at times and rallied around two of their top three scorers in the blitz. Elusive and swift guard Mikaili Donmoyer sank six of her game-high 15 points in the run as did crafty Kailen Felty (10) in the early getaway.

“We knew we were going to have our hands full with [Donmoyer],” Reichenbach said of the junior guard and the best player on Pine Grove’s team. “I thought we played decent defense in the first half. But we made too many mistakes.”

Indeed that was the case from all points. The Falcons’ lack of offense was surfacing after a quarter of play trailing 19-6 and by the time the teams hit the midway point, the eventual winners had scurried off to a 29-11 lead.

Down 21-6 at the onset of the second quarter, Salisbury tried making a dent when Katie Seiler hit the front-end of two foul shots, Melena Koutch also hit a foul conversion and Hannah Kamp raced down the floor for a breakaway basket.

That run hardly stirred the pot. Salisbury was still in the arrears 25-10 and by the time the second half was about to commence Pine Grove outscored Salisbury 10-5 and held a 20-point lead.

“They’re well-coached and well-rounded,” Reichenbach said. “We were 0-22 last year. (This year) we made the league and district playoffs. I’m proud of what they did.”

Fans have to love the hustle and potential from Salisbury’s trio Quinn Wittman, Hannah Kamp and Krista Bonge, the latter two at 5-foot-10. A little work in the offseason can turn the program into a solid foundation.

The Falcons struggled shooting, going 5-for-29 and committing 34 turnovers compared to Pine Grove’s 19-of-45 shooting, 36 rebounds and 13 turnovers. The Falcons held their own in rebounding getting 31. Kamp led the team with 8 rebounds, Bonge had 7 and Wittman pulled down 6.

Salisbury ended the season with a 7-9 record. Pine Grove (12-10) moves into the 3A semifinals facing top seed ND Green Pond.

Bidding adieu for the Falcons are seniors Koutch, Ariana Young, Bryn Kubinsky, Krystal Aungst, Sierra Rauch, Kerry Seiler and Rory Watson.