During the 17-year head coaching reign of Scott Sandelin, the University of Minnesota Duluth has lost just two of 21 exhibition games. Both of those have been at the hands of the U.S.National Under-18 Team, the latest of which the Bulldogs suffered Saturday night.

Michael Pastujov scored with 32.4 seconds remaining in the third period to break a 1-1 deadlock and lift the U.S. Under-18s past UMD 2-1 at AMSOIL Arena. It marked the first victory for the U.S. Under-18s (3-8-1) in six matchups with NCAA Division I clubs this seasons.

Following a scoreless first period, UMD drew first blood midway through the second when senior left winger Alex Iafallo freed Dominic Toninato with a pass near center ice and the senior center broke in all alone and tucked a forehand past U.S.Under-18 goaltender Dylan St. Cyr. Toninato scored three times in UMD's 4-3 overtime home victory over the U.S. Under-18s last January. At 14:105 of that same period and with UMD on the power play, Brady Tkachuk got the equalizer, beating both a Bulldog defenseman and goaltender Nick Deery on the play.

Each of UMD's three freshmen goaltenders saw one period of activity with Hunter Miska getting the start and stopping all five shots he faced. Nick Deery came on in the second period and made four saves on five shots before Hunter Shepard finished with seven stops in the final 20 minutes of regulation.

"This is another game about missed opportunities -- that's two games in a row," said Sandelin. "I feel like we had plenty of opportunities. We missed the net a lot tonight so two things: One we've go to bear down more around the net and second, we've got to clean up the break downs becaise cause they've been pretty evident."

The Bulldogs will return to regular season play this Friday and Saturday when they launch their National Collegiate Hockey Conference schedule against top-ranked University of North Dakota in Duluth.