SLEDGE DEVELOPMENT TEAM LEADS LATE, BUT FALLS IN SHOOTOUT TO AMERICANS

TORONTO, Ont. – Ben Delaney (Ottawa, Ont.) and Jordan Cullum (Burlington, Ont.) scored in regulation time, but Canada’s National Sledge Development Team lost a late lead and ended up on the wrong end of a shootout in a 3-2 loss to the United States on Friday night.

Delaney scored the lone goal in the shootout for Canada, which has dropped the first two games of the three-game series after a 4-1 defeat in Thursday night’s series opener at the MasterCard Centre.

Chris Douglas opened the scoring the Americans at the 11-minute mark of the first period, but it took just 2:18 for Delaney to pull the Canadians even.

Cullum’s goal in the final minute of the second period gave Canada the lead heading to the final 15 minutes, and it looked like the hosts would even up the series before Sam Mumper forced overtime with just 2:25 remaining.

After an extra five minutes solved nothing, Delaney and Bryan Genovese traded goals in the first three rounds of the shootout. Dan McDevitt converted for the Americans in round five before Cullum was turned away by Kyle Huckaby to give the U.S. the win.

Canadian netminder Chris Wood (London, Ont.) finished with 17 saves in regulation time and overtime before turning away three of five Americans in the shootout, while Huckaby had 13 saves in the first 50 minutes before making four shootout stops.

The series concludes Saturday with a late afternoon match-up (4:30 p.m. ET).