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Team USA Wins U18 Women's Series Finale

By USAHockey.com, 08/25/13, 12:30PM MDT

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LAKE PLACID, N.Y. -- Lexie Laing (Marblehead, Mass.) netted a pair of goals and Erin O'Neil (Minnetonka, Minn.) made 18 saves to help the U.S. Women's National Under-18 Team defeat Canada, 3-2, here today in the final game of the 2013 Women's Under-18 Series.

"We came out strong, put pressure on them right from the start and played our best game of the series," said head coach Jeff Kampersal. "I'm proud of our effort and it was a great learning experience for this group of players."

Canada opened the scoring at 16:58 of the first period on a wrap around goal by Eve-Audrey Picard.

The U.S. tallied three unanswered goals in the second period to take a commanding 3-1 lead. Taylor Williamson (Edina, Minn.) evened the score, 1-1, during a two-man advantage at :44, taking a cross-crease pass from Melissa Samoskevich (Sandy Hook, Conn.) and burying it into an open net. Lexie Laing (Marblehead, Mass.) made it 2-1 at 15:31 after sustained pressure led to a goal-mouth scramble in which she took a pass from Taylar Cianfarano (Oswego, N.Y.) and beat Canadian netminder Shea Tiley. Laing notched her second goal off a feed from Maddie Rolfes (West Des Moines, Iowa), skating in from the right circle and wristing a shot past the goalie's glove hand at 18:37.

At 5:22 of the third period, Picard scored her second goal of the game to pull Canada within one, making it 3-2.

For a U.S. Women's National Under-18 Team roster, click here, and for Under-18 Series coverage, click here.

NOTES: The Under-18 Series is a three-game competition vs. Canada that began in 2007 ... The 22 players on the U.S. roster hail from 10 states, with Minnesota's seven representatives leading the group ... Reagan Carey (Colorado Springs, Colo.), USA Hockey's director of women's hockey, is the general manager of Team USA at the 2013 Under-18 Series against Canada and the 2014 IIHF Women's Under-18 World Championship ... Jeff Kampersal (Pennington, N.J.), head women's ice hockey coach at Princeton University, is the head coach of the U.S. Women's National Under-18 Team for the 2013-14 season ... The assistant coaches are Courtney Kennedy (Somerville, Mass.), associate women's ice hockey coach at Boston College and Katie Lachapelle (Winthrop, Mass.), assistant women's ice hockey coach at Boston University.