Hollis Brookline's Jayce Cora has his shot attempt contested by Pelham's Jake Travis during Tuesday night's game in Hollis. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

HOLLIS – Ah, there’s nothing like first impressions.

It’s a new chapter in Marty Edwards’ high school basketball coaching life, and he knows there will be some tough pages to read.

Edwards is not only taking over a new team, Hollis Brookline, but after years as a Division I assistant (Bishop Guertin) and head coach (Alvirne), he’s in a new league.

Tuesday night, he got introduced to one of its powers, Pelham, last year’s runner-up in Division II. And the Pythons left quite a first impression in the form of an 80-36 win over Edwards’ Cavaliers.

“That’s a great basketball team, they’re well coached,” Edwards said of Pelham. “When they’re shooting like that, and playing like that, what can you do? That’s a great basketball team. …”

Edwards and the Cavs shouldn’t feel too bad, the Pythons did the same thing to John Stark the other night in the form of a 77-24 win.

“We’ve had a couple of lopsided scores, we’ve done really well to begin, we had a good preseason,” Pelham coach Mike Larson said. “I’m not looking to put the cart before the horse and say we’re going to go unchallenged. … We play hard, I’ve got a good group of kids who have all bought in playing together. I knew we’d play hard.”

Larson has four players who played significant minutes from last year’s team that lost to Lebanon in the Division II title game. His team has size, is long, lean, and made life miserable for the Cavs who started going strong to the hoop and then just became tentative. In the blink of an eye, the Pythons turned a 14-11 game into a 40-11 lead, a 26-0 run. Turnovers turned to layups or uncontested 3-pointers. Pelham had 11 treys in all.

“I think we have to get used to the fact you can’t take any plays off,” Edwards said. “Momentum changes so fast. … We have to keep our foot on the pedal and understand we have to have continuous energy to keep making plays. From everybody.”

“We’re led by our defense, we practice it every day, full court man-to-man, if you’re not coming off the floor soaked in sweat doing it right. They (the Cavs) were not quite too strong in the ball handling department, so we thought we could pressure them into turnovers. Once it gets going, it just snowballs.”

Pelham, which was led by Jake McGlinchey’s 20 points, 12 from Zach James (four 3’s) and 11 by Dom Herrling, enjoyed a 50-21 advantage at the half and 64-30 after three periods. It was running time in the fourth quarter.

The Cavs were more fluid in the second half, but too little, too late. Aidan Dufoe and John Kotelly each had eight to lead HB, now 0-2.

Edwards said there were a few players missing that might have closed the gap; if they’re back when the teams meet in Pelham next Monday, that might help.

“I liked our effort in the second half a little bit better, we hustled a little bit more,” Edwards said. “It was good, the kids got some minutes, we need the minutes right now.”

And so does Edwards, as he’ll admit.

“It’s a little bit tougher because I don’t know the teams, I don’t know the coaches,” Edwards said. “I’m kind of relying on what video we can get from last year. It’s a bit of an adjustment, it’ll be a bit of a learning curve.

“But I’ll tell you what, Division II is just as tough. You saw a darn good team tonight that would be able to compete in Division I, no problem.”

The Cavs, he said, will be a different team “right around the middle of the season. We’re still kind of breaking in, figuring out who we are, what we can do.”

Tuesday night, they found out what the Pythons can do, and you can bet the rest of Division II will learn that as well.