After the first 20 combined shots of the night were stopped by USA's Jack Parsons (Ithaca, N.Y.) and Switzerland's Christian Kirsch, the U18s finally broke the ice with less than a minute to play in the opening period. On a 3-on-1 breakout, Brodie Ziemer (Hutchinson, Minn.) found Stiga for the first shot that was pushed aside by Kirsch. But Kamil Bednarik (Chicago, Ill.) was waiting on the doorstep for the put-back score to give Team USA a lead into the first intermission. 

The same trio of forwards teamed up to double the lead just 25 seconds into the middle stanza. Stiga broke up an attempted Swiss breakout and ended up with the first shot of a drop-pass from Bednarik. Kirsch made a pad save but Ziemer made no mistake on the second chance to extend the lead to 2-0.

Cole Eiserman (Newburyport, Mass.) made it three in a row for Team USA on home ice with a power-play marker at 3:09. Max Plante (Hermantown, Minn.) was first to a puck that was chipped up high in the air. He found Eiserman stationed at the right circle, where he wired a one-timer past Kirsch for his 35th score of the season. 

Switzerland ended the U.S. run after Jamiro Reber found Nolan Cattin on a 2-on-1 break, who deposited his shot in the back of the net to make it a 3-1 game.

Team USA answered the score just 44 seconds later as Stiga intercepted a pass and ripped a wrister over the glove of Kirsch for his third point of the game.