Belgrade, Serbia - August 18 - The USA Youth Men's National Team finished strong at the FINA Youth World Championship, defeating Canada 23-6 to take ninth place. Ben Liechty and
John Burghardt each scored four goals in the win with
Bernardo Herzer and
Riley Clansen adding 11 saves. Watch a full replay of the match by
clicking here. Team USA finishes play in Belgrade at 3-2-1.
Canada took an early 1-0 lead to open the first quarter before Liechty scored two of the next four goals to help give the United States a 3-2 lead after one. Will Schneider started the scoring in the second quarter as Team USA would see five different athletes find the cage while the defense held Canada scoreless.
Gage Verdegaal finished things off with a score to make it 8-2 at intermission.
The USA offense went next level in the third quarter, outscoring Canada 9-3 to surge ahead at 17-5. Liechty scored two in a row to make it 11-3 with 5:52 to play in the third. Not long after it was
Carter Loth hitting on consecutive power plays to build the lead to 14-4 with 3:03 remaining. Burghardt tacked on the last two goals of the quarter for Team USA and they rode a 12-goal cushion into the fourth. Tsotadze opened the fourth with two straight goals to make it 19-5. They would add four more goals, capped off by another Verdegaal tally in the final seconds to close out the match.
The United States went 12/16 on power plays and 3/4 on penalties while Canada went 2/5 on power plays and 1/1 on penalties.
Scoring -
Stats
USA 23 (3, 5, 9, 6) B. Liechty 4, J. Burghardt 4, P. Castillo 3, J. Tsotadze 3, C. Loth 2, R. Dodd 2, G. Verdegaal 2, W. Schneider 1, C. Arakelian 1, E. Ausmus 1
CAN 6 (2, 0, 3, 1) A. Oviedo-Ladik 2, A. Mekni 1, G. Marquez 1, I. Diacenco 1, C. Evans 1
Saves - USA - B. Herzer 6 - R. Clansen 5 - CAN - L. Sterne 3, H. Mahmoud 2
6x5 - USA - 12/16 - CAN - 2/5
Penalties - USA - 3/4 - CAN 1/1
