WHITEHALL - There were eerie signs early on that had Lehighton head coach Dave Yob recall last year's trip to the district tournament.

Much like last season's loss to Northwestern in the semifinals round, Lehighton once again struggled to capitalize on its early opportunities on goal during Tuesday's semifinals against No. 3 seed Salisbury. It once again caused the Indians, No. 2 seed in the District 11 Class AA tournament, problems they couldn't recover from.Despite holding a 10-5 advantage in the shots category at halftime, the only statistic that mattered was Salisbury's 1-0 lead after 40 minute of play. The Falcons added two more in the second half to advance to Thursday's District 11 championship game after their 3-1 win over Lehighton at Whitehall High School's Zephyr Sports Complex."We needed to get one to go in in order to break the ice and give everybody confidence," Yob said. "The same thing happened last year at this point against Northwestern. It was a tough game. We couldn't get any to go in last year."The shots on goal came early and often, plenty of which had the opportunity to break a scoreless game if they were on target.Instead, Salisbury took the air out of Lehighton's tires late in the first half. Patrick Adams set up his brother Zach Adams for the go-ahead score that gave the Falcons a 1-0 advantage with 5:48 to play in the opening half."We had a couple of opportunities in the first half and we just missed," Yob said.The second half was a different story for the second-seeded Indians. That same speed and hustle to the ball wasn't as evident after the halftime whistle.The Falcons added to their lead not even 10 minutes into the second half when James Hadinger ripped a deep shot off the left post.It only took the Indians five minutes later to respond, however. Dan Baka skipped a ball in front of Salisbury's goal, and Frank Bokan was there to get a foot on the ball and redirect it past Tyler Keller."We got the one to go in in the second half to make it 2-1, and I thought maybe we could get another one to tie it up," Yob said. "The kids were pressing. With us, if we get one we can usually find a way to get a second one fairly quickly."There would be another goal, but it came from Salisbury's attack. Mason Groff took a few dribbles around an Indian defender and placed a shot into the left corner of the net past Lehighton's Greg Venuto for a commanding 3-1 lead."He [Venuto] did a solid job today," Yob said. "The goals they scored on him were well-placed. That's the difference in the game. They were able to get the well-placed goals, and we tried to place the ball well and just missed."Venuto was making just his fourth start, all coming in the postseason, after Tyler Dietz injured himself prior to the league semifinals.SENIOR-LADEN TURNAROUND ... When the current group of Lehighton seniors were freshman, that team won just seven games. No team up to that point had a winning record in school history. Since then, the Indians have gone 12-9-1 (2013), 18-4 (2014) and 19-3 (2015) in the past three seasons.SEMIFINAL SLUMP ... After falling in the quarterfinals round of their first district appearance in 2013, the Indians lost their last two semifinals matchups by a combined score of 8-1.REBUILD OR RELOAD? ... There's no question next year's squad is going to look different. With eight seniors set to graduate, including seven starters, the Indians will need to fill numerous voids across the field.