The Salisbury High School football team has gone through a gauntlet of the Colonial League’s top teams over the past few weeks.

After taking on unbeaten teams Northwestern and Notre Dame (Green Pond) on back to back weeks, the Falcons faced a Northern Lehigh team that is now 5-1 before taking on a third unbeaten this past Saturday when Palmerton visited Salisbury for a matinee game.

The Blue Bombers handed the Falcons’ their third straight loss, 42-7, behind a six-touchdown performance from quarterback TJ Gursky.

Since winning its opening game over South Philadelphia, Salisbury (1-5) has dropped five straight games.

Falcon head coach Kevin DiZenzo said his team has shown some improvement, but with an abundance of injuries his line up is made up of a lot of inexperienced varsity players.

“There were some things we need to clean up, but we’re going into week 7,” he said. “The injuries have hit us again. The number of crutches on our sidelines seems to be worse than last year. It’s hard to have freshmen and sophomores out here.”

Salisbury has about a dozen players out with injuries and eight of them won’t be able to make it back this season. All but one of them was at least a one-way starter.

The team is playing mostly the same 11 players on both sides of the ball.

“Our entire offensive line has been replaced twice this year,” said DiZenzo.

On Saturday, Salisbury slowed Palmerton down early in the game, forcing a turnover on downs on the Bombers’ first possession.

After Palmerton scored on its second drive of the game, the Falcons thought they had an answer before their third-down pass that went for an 87-yard touchdown was called back because of a holding penalty.

“We fell behind and made a lot of mistakes,” said DiZenzo. “You lose momentum and they just take off with it.”

Salisbury was forced to punt from near its own end zone. The Bombers got good field position, but the Salisbury defense forced another turnover on downs and then went on a 10-play drive that only netted 18 yards before a punt gave the ball back to the Bombers.

Palmerton got the ball at its own 25-yard line and went 75 yards in nine plays for a 14-0 lead with 6:14 left in the first half. The Bombers added a third touchdown late in the second quarter to take a 21-0 lead into halftime.

Touchdowns on two short possessions to start the second half made the score 35-0 with 6:55 left in the third quarter to put the game into the mercy rule.

Salisbury got on the scoreboard when Iovani Lopez completed a 12-yard touchdown pass to Keaton Frye with 9:10 left in the fourth quarter before Palmerton added a late touchdown to cap the scoring.

With the gauntlet part of the season behind them, the Falcons head into a stretch of three games against opponents that are under .500 for the season. They travel to Palisades (0-7) next Friday before hosting Pen Argyl (2-4) a week later. They head to Catasauqua (1-5) the penultimate week of the regular season and finish with a home game against Southern Lehigh on Oct. 30. The Spartans are unbeaten through the first six weeks.

Salisbury is in seventh place in the District 11 Class 3A rankings. The top eight teams qualify for district playoffs. Tamaqua (2-4) trails the Falcons but not by much. Panther Valley (3-3) is in sixth place by a few ratings points.

A couple wins over the final four weeks would likely secure Salisbury’s place in the district playoffs and three wins would almost surely get the Falcons to the tournament. One more win might even be enough when everything shakes out, but it’s much more likely that two will be needed.