Syracuse, NY (January 20, 2012) -- Patrick Maroon recorded a hat trick, and added an assist, as the Crunch defeated the Norfolk Admirals, 6-3, in Associate Head Coach Trent Yawney's home debut tonight at the War Memorial Arena.

Maxime Macenauer posted two goals in his first game since suffering a knee injury on December 30 and Dan Sexton added a goal and two assists to improve the Crunch's record to 18-15-3-2.

“The way our team is going right now we have a lot of energy and we have a lot of confidence,” said Maroon. “This is a big conference game for us with Norfolk near the top of the division. We are trying to catch them, so we did what we had to do tonight and played good structured hockey and played within our systems and I think we did that really well.”

The Crunch jumped out to an early scoring three goals in the first period. Maroon tallied twice in the opening frame, first at the 1:21 and again at the 16:20 mark of the first period. Macenauer scored his first of the game at the 12:08 mark, assisted by Matt Smaby and Maroon.

Sexton scored his first goal since December 10 at the 3:48 mark of the second period to extend the Crunch's lead to four. Macenauer added his second of the night at the 8:46 mark and Maroon potted his third of the game at 15:41 to conclude the Crunch's scoring for the night.

The Admirals put an end to Marco Cousineau's shutout bid 4:25 into the final frame when Mike Angelidis scored his first of the night. He struck again just 26 seconds later. The Admirals final goal came with six seconds remaining.

The Crunch play the Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins in a home and home this Saturday and Sunday.

Crunchables: Marco Cousineau has a 3-0 career AHL record…Matt Smaby, Luca Caputi, Andrew Gordon and Marco Cousineau made their home Crunch debuts…Patrick Maroon and Mark Fraser wore A's tonight…Patrick Maroon leads the team with 13 multiple-point games this season.