Natalie Snodgrass scored her second goal of the game 1:47 into overtime as the United States came from behind to defeat Canada 3-2 for gold on Friday at the under-18 women's world hockey championship.
Jaime Bourbonnais made it 1-0 late in the first and Daryl Watts doubled Canada's lead at 5:58 of the second.
The Canadians looked to be headed towards their fifth U18 gold medal, but started to come undone late in the second.
Alex Woken started the rally for the Americans when she scored at 15:20 to cut Canada's lead in half. Then, Snodgrass forced extra time when she found the back of the net at 8:03 of the third.
"In a game like this, it's so close, it's going to come down to a bounce," said Canadian coach Lisa Haley. "We weren't able to capitalize on our bounces and that's the way the game is going to go when there's two great opponents that match up so well together.
"I think overall, we certainly had our opportunities to win the game as well."
Alex Gulstene stopped 21-of-23 shots for the American side as Canada's Stephanie Neatby made 26 saves in defeat.
The U.S. went 0 for 4 on the power play while Canada failed to score on its only chance with the man advantage.
"I'm so proud of how our team battled through adversity and stayed strong against a tough Canadian team," said American coach Joel Johnson. "The way we came back from a two-goal deficit shows a lot about what this team is made of. This is an amazing group of young women and they earned this tremendous victory."
The Canadians also dropped a 4-1 decision to the U.S. in preliminary-round play.
Canada and the U.S. have appeared in the finals of every U18 women's world championship — with the Canadians winning gold in 2010, 2012, 2013 and 2014.
Earlier in the day, Sweden edged Russia 2-1 to claim its fifth bronze medal in tournament history.
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