Team USA wasted no time to open the scoring, finding the back of the net on the first goal of the game. Will Skahan (Woodbury, Minn.) fired a stretch pass the length of the ice that deflected off the end boards and right to a charging Baker. He put his shot through the five-hole of Cameron Rowe for an early 1-0 lead.

Western connected for two goals in 83 seconds to take a 2-1 lead less than six minutes into the game. The first came from alternate captain Chad Hillebrand while transfer Alex Bump found paydirt shortly after to give the visitors a lead.

The U18s tied it with a pretty tip-in score from James Hagens (Hauppauge, N.Y.) on the power play. John Whipple (Minnetonka, Minn.) led the charge into the offensive zone. The puck worked its way over to Shane Vansaghi (St. Louis, Mo.) along the right wing, where he slid a perfect back-door feed for Hagens' fifth score of the year. 

Less than a minute later, Western retook the lead off of Bump's second goal of the night and the Broncos added a fourth before the break to take a 4-2 lead after 20 minutes of action. 

Team USA cut the lead to one three minutes into the middle frame on their second power-play score of the night. Christian Humphreys (Pittsburgh, Pa.) found Teddy Stiga (Sudbury, Mass.) stationed behind the net. He found Bednarik at the left hash, where he wired his wrister in the top corner to make it a 4-3 game.