The PMHS varsity ice hockey team improved to 2-0 Tuesday night after thrashing John Jay Cross River 8-2. This was a game that featured two teams with serious preseason hype, and many favored John Jay coming into the matchup. They were proven wrong from the beginning of the game.

Pelham got off to a hot start in the first period after John Jay was called for a major, five-minute boarding/roughing penalty. This allowed sophomore Will Crotty, junior Louie Marcellino and senior captain Jordan Hurd to rip off three goals in quick succession before the penalty was over. Marcellino then got his second goal later in the period to put the Pelicans up 4-0.

Marcellino capped off his night with a hat trick, making the game 6-1 at one point. Crotty added another to his tally as well, and sophomore Griffen Evans and junior Chris Franchini also tallied.

“Going into this game, we wanted to send a message to every other team in Section 1 that we’re the team they need to beat,” Hurd said. “We didn’t only wanna win, we wanted to blow them out, and we did exactly that.”

The Pelicans will travel to North Rockland on Friday to face off against the Red Raiders at 9:15 p.m.