Tamaqua head coach Jay Daubert wasn't happy with his team's performance in last week's opener against Weatherly.

In his second year at the helm of the Blue Raider program, it was what he called a "lackluster performance" in what he termed a winnable game.Daubert liked what he saw from a couple of his seniors on Monday night however, as Tamaqua used it's physical strength to outmuscle Palmerton 52-41 in a non-league contest on the Bombers' floor.Michael Taylor, who had an off night against the Wreckers, turned it completely around with a 23-point performance and Anthony Bumbulsky added 13 to keep Tamaqua (1-1) in control."It was good to get a win for the kids and get some confidence going going in to Jim Thorpe on Friday," said Daubert. "Michael Taylor really picked it up tonight. He had some good looks in that first game that just weren't dropping and he has the capability to put up 20-some points a night. Hopefully we can get him in those spots to keep doing that."Michael Streisel and Anthony Bumbulsky had six points apiece in the opening quarter to help Tamaqua move out to a 15-11 lead."We were just going through the numbers and found out Bumbulsky only ended up with 13," said Daubert. "But he played much bigger than 13 points tonight. He dominated when he had to and he got us off to a good start tonight."In the second quarter, it was Taylor's offense and the Raiders' 1-3-1 defense that exposed the youth of the Blue Bombers, who were missing co-captain Christian Marcin, point guard and last year's leading scorer, who came down with a case of strep throat.Taylor scored 11 of his team's 17 points in the quarter lifting the Raiders to a 32-21 halftime lead.The closest the Bombers would come the rest of the night was six points a couple of times in the final eight minutes, but it was Taylor again with nine points during that stretch, to nail down the win."We hit shots tonight," said Daubert. "We were 6-of-13 from three-point range. We were 6-for-30 at Weatherly. So we shot a little bit better from outside the arc and we went to the basket a little bit more."We didn't play our 1-3-1 that much against Weatherly because we were still working on it. We threw it in tonight knowing that they were a younger team and maybe we could create some turnovers and it helped us out."Palmerton head coach Mike Snyder agreed."They were just more physical than us," said Snyder. "They came and took it to us. I was impressed with them. They're a pretty athletic team."We kind of took a step back. We showed our youth tonight. We didn't make our foul shots and we missed a lot of layups. Every game is going to be a learning experience for us."The Bombers won the JV game 46-35 behind 18 points from Ben Andrew.TAMAQUAStreisel 3-3-4-9, Fegley 0-0-0-0, Bumbulsky 5-2-5-13, Bennett 0-0-1-0, Lakitsky 2-0-2-6, Rudy 0-1-2-1, Taylor 9-2-2-23, Ansbach 0-0-0-0, Gurscik 0-0-0-0, Hubosky 0-0-0-0. TOTALS: 19-8-16-52.PALMERTONTyahla 0-0-0-0, Furry 4-2-4-10, Freed 1-0-0-3, Snyder 1-2-4-4, Andrews 2-0-0-7, Svetik 1-0-3-2, Geist 1-0-0-3, Kravetz 4-1-5-9, Reinhart 1-1-4-3. TOTALS: 15-6-20-41.Tamaqua 15 17 6 14 - 52Palmerton 11 10 7 13 - 41Three-pointers: T - Taylor 3, Lakitsky 2, Bumbulsky 1. P - Freed 1, Andrews 1, Geist 1.