Soon after the Senior Night ceremonies had concluded Tuesday at Salisbury High School, boys basketball coach Jason Weaver sent out a starting five of all seniors.

While three were regular starters in Jaxon Costello, Ryan Slutsky and Blake Jones, the other two were not only strangers to the starting lineup but hadn’t seen much playing time throughout the rest of the regular season. And yet with Collin Trainer and Dan Snyder filling out the starting lineup, the Falcons didn’t skip a beat.

In fact, the duo delivered a spark that sent Salisbury on its way to a big 70-60 win over Southern Lehigh in a game with key implications for the upcoming Colonial League tournament.

“We started five seniors tonight with some guys that don’t see that much action, but I think we sort of fed off that,” Weaver said. “Those guys were out there busting their butt. To me, that’s what high school basketball’s about — guys that come to practice all the time and give us everything they have. They deserve that. I think it maybe inspired the other guys to be a little bit more pumped up.”

Trainer and Snyder didn’t factor into the scoring, and exited the game to a loud applause midway through the first quarter, but made sure their impact was felt in the special start.

“I feel like the two seniors that started that normally don’t play did great — not scoring, but they picked it up on defense and gave us a nice start,” Costello said. “They gave us some energy, some confidence and they played well.”

With the win, the Falcons (17-5, 14-4 CL) secured the No. 3 seed in the league tournament, setting up a home game against No. 6 Moravian Academy Saturday. The Spartans (17-5, 15-3 CL), who saw their 12-game winning streak snapped, were already locked in with the No. 2 seed and a bye into the semifinals.

Costello poured in a career-high 32 points as Salisbury never trailed and reversed a 67-53 loss to Southern Lehigh from last month’s first meeting.

“Senior Night, we all knew we wanted to come out tough and get a win,” Costello said. “We worked on breaking the press — that was a big deal in our last game. We couldn’t break the press and they got a bunch of points off that. Coach told us coming into this game we needed to make it a half-court game on offense. We feel like we had a lot of mismatches and we got to take advantage of them today. I think our guards did a pretty good job breaking the press.”

The 6-foot-4 senior forward proved to be a handful inside with a soft touch near the rim backed up by his imposing presence to create space and later crash the boards.

“He’s big and he’s strong,” Weaver said. “He’s able to position on the block and if we do a good job getting him the ball, he’s got a good touch. He was 14 of 14 from the line, so we want him to get the ball. I think that was a focus tonight.”

Costello is now averaging 18.5 points per game.

Southern Lehigh started forcing a bevy of turnovers late as its full-court press began to take effect, cutting a 17-point deficit early in the fourth quarter to nine points with three minutes to go, but it couldn’t complete the comeback. Sean Welsh paced the Spartans with 22 points — including 17 of his team’s 21 points in the fourth quarter.

“They figured out a way to beat our press very easily — and not just beat it, they were able to beat our press and score off of it,” Southern Lehigh coach Ben Tannous said. “We weren’t able to get much pressure on them and then they were able to beat us in the half court with Costello obviously being a beast inside. That really hurt. On top of that, we just didn’t make shots.”

Junior guard Jack Reichenbach made an impact off the bench for the Falcons, getting hot at the right time. Late in the second quarter, he scored on four straight possessions with a pair of 3-pointers in the process as he traded punches back and forth with the Spartans.

Reichenbach also threw down a loud dunk in the first quarter on the first of back-to-back baskets.

"Usually when I make a few outside shots, I like to just find the open shots,” Reichenbach said. “When I’m making them, I look for my shot.”

“Jack was hitting his shots and sort of feeling it,” Weaver said. “It seemed like it was a big shot every time.”

With a concerted effort to get the ball inside to Costello, coupled with Salisbury’s focus on making it a half-court game — and that early jolt from the two senior spot-starters — the Falcons were able to hold off Southern Lehigh and head into the postseason with full steam ahead.

“It’s great momentum going into Saturday,” Weaver said. “It gives us the confidence we can play with these guys, because to be honest with you, based on the regular season, I didn’t think we could play with them or we could match up with their quickness. That was the concern. We did a better job getting back on defense, we did a better job of making sure we were getting the ball inside and we did enough down the stretch and shot really well from the line.”

Greg Joyce may be reached at gjoyce@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @GJoyce9. Find Lehigh Valley high school sports on Facebook.

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