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Photo by Rena Laverty
PLYMOUTH, Mich. - Despite a rally in the last 10 minutes of their final game of the 2023-24 season, the U.S. National Under-17 Team fell to the Youngstown Phantoms, 4-3, Saturday night at USA Hockey Arena.
Team USA jumped on the board first off a Will Horcoff (Bloomfield Hills, Mich.) snipe from the left circle at 10:08. Cullen Potter (Minneapolis, Minn.) rimmed a puck behind the cage and Conrad Fondrk (White Bear Lake, Minn.) used a nice slip play to be first to the puck. He dropped it for Horcoff, who connected for his 11th score of the season and a 1-0 lead.
The visiting Phantoms responded with the next pair of scores in the game to take a 2-1 lead after 20 minutes. First, it was Kuzma Voronin who lit the lamp from the left faceoff dot on the power play. Less than three minutes later, Plymouth, Mich., native Luke Osburn put Youngstown on top with another wrister from an identical location.
The U17s evened the score just 82 seconds into the middle frame. Jack Murtagh (East Greenbush, N.Y.) thwarted a Phantoms zone entry and pitched the puck up to a driving Will Moore (Ithaca, N.Y.). He delayed and chipped a backhand up over the shoulder of Colin Winn to make it a 2-2 contest.
Once again, Youngstown came back with the next pair of scores. Michael Monroe was the beneficiary of a goalmouth scramble and he knocked it by Joey Slavick (Westland, Mich.) to put the Phantoms ahead once more. Just prior to the halfway mark of the game, it was defenseman Coleson Hanrahan who found the back of the net after a similar jumble in front to give Youngstown a 4-2 lead that they held until the end of the period.
The U17s brought it back to within a score at 6:01 of the third on the power play. After a pretty passing sequence around the offensive zone, Fondrk found defenseman Donny Bracco (Freeport, N.Y.) at the left circle, where he wired a one-timer bar-in to close the gap to 4-3. Potter picked up the secondary helper on Bracco's fifth of the season.
Team USA pulled netminder Patrick Quinlan (Kennett Square, Pa.), who took the second half of the game in net, with two and a half minutes to play in the game, and despite constant pressure in the attacking zone, could not find the back of the net in the eventual 4-3 loss.
Tonight's final wraps the U.S. National Under-17 Team's season. Season tickets for the 2024-25 Team USA campaign are on sale now. Call the USA Hockey Arena box office at 734-453-8400 or visit USAHockeyNTDP.com/tix to join the USA family!