Salisbury has a couple of things going for it in the Colonial League playoffs.

First, the Falcons are a close-knit unit that has played together since their elementary school days. Second, they have several players capable of scoring points and none of them care if they’re not the leading scorer.

When Lehighton controlled Salisbury’s leading scorer Steven Lozada early on Friday night in the Colonial League quarterfinals, it was no big thing for the Falcons.

They turned to Garrett Leiner and Bryan Gonzalez to combine for 10 first quarter points.

When Lozada hit just his second basket of the night – a three-pointer with 25 seconds left in the second quarter – it turned out to be the start of something big. Salisbury opened the second half with an 11-0 run and finished the night with a 60-45 win to advance to Tuesday’s semifinals.

“I think that what you saw was that they just wore us down,” said Lehighton head coach Trevor Miller. “They’re 20-2 for a reason. They have a lot of guys who can shoot and a lot of guys who can really handle the ball.”

For Lehighton, the loss means a long layoff until the Indians open the District 11 4A tournament where they could see Salisbury again.

Cole Dietz and Blake Roberts hit a pair of three-pointers early, but the Falcons hung in and tied the score at 6-6. Caden Meek threaded passes through the defense to find Roberts open in the paint all night as the Falcons gave up a game-high 21 points to Roberts, many of them coming on turnaround jumpers in front of the basket.

Down 14-12, Leiner made a strong move to the baseline for the first points of the second quarter, and the Falcons used five different players to power their game-opening run that put them up 23-14 with 3:37 left in the first half.

A timeout by Miller stopped the momentum. His team to turned the tables to score six unanswered points.

With just :25 left in the half, Lozada put up a three-pointer that made it 26-20 going into halftime. What nobody knew at the time was that Salisbury was poised for another run.

“They got that inbound and threw it over the top for Lozada,” said Miller. “He hit a three and that kind of went right into the second half because they came out with a lot of energy. This game came down to making shots and they made some tough ones, and we missed what I would say are shots that we normally hit.”

As the Falcons looked to pull away, Lozada hit a pair of foul shots to go up 33-24 to equal their largest lead of the game.

Roberts wasn’t done as he hit a three-pointer for the Indians.

After being held to just five points in the first half, Lozada scored seven straight for Salisbury, including a shot from beyond the arc to make it 38-27 with 2:18 left in the third quarter. A pair of late free throws from Cole Dietz made it 38-29 at halftime.

Slowly, the rebounding advantage that Lehighton held early on disappeared and the Falcons took control of the boards.

Salisbury built largest lead at 54-32 when Lozada hit the second of two foul shots with 1:08 to play.

Dietz got a shot to fall and was fouled on his way to the basket. The three-point play cut the lead to 54-35 as Lehighton tried to find a miracle by fouling, but Gonzalez scored the final six points of the night for Salisbury on his way to finishing with 11 points.

Lozada exploded for 13 second-half points to finish with a game-high 18 for Salisbury.

STAY READY... Lehighton has some time to catch its breath before it goed into the district playoffs, which begin on Feb. 20. As things stand now, the Indians will play the number two seed in the 4A classification.

CL SEMIFINALS...Salisbury, the number two seed in the league tournament, will play third seeded Northwestern Lehigh in the semifinal round Tuesday at a 6 p.m. at site to be determined. Northwestern beat Wilson in Friday’s quarterfinals.

LEHIGHTON

McCarroll 0-0-0-0, Solt 1-0-0-3, White 2-0-0-4, Meek 1-0-0-2, Fairchild 0-0-0-0, Rodgers 0-0-0-0, Roberts 9-0-1-21, Dietz 4-6-7-15. TOTALS: 17-6-8-45.

SALISBURY

Lozada 6-4-6-18, Leiner 5-1-1-11, B. Gonzalez 3-4-4-11, Petrie 1-1-2-3, Frye 1-0-0-2, Cady 0-0-0-0, Makhoul 6-1-2-15. TOTALS: 22-11-15-60.

Lehighton 14 6 9 16 - 45

Salisbury 12 14 12 22 - 60

Three-pointers: Lehighton – Roberts 3, Solt, Dietz; Salisbury – Lozada 2, Makhoul 2, B. Gonzalez.

Records: Lehighton (10-9 Colonial, 13-10 overall); Salisbury - (17-2 Colonial, 21-2 overall)