SUMMERSIDE -- The United States will play for the gold medal at the 2009 World Junior ‘A’ Hockey Challenge.

The United States built a 4-0 lead and then defeated Russia 6-3 in a semifinal game Friday afternoon. The United States will play the winner of tonight’s Canada West and Canada East semifinal.

Connor Brickley (11:25), Shane Berschbach (13:37) and Jeff Costello (18:54) scored first-period goals for the United States. Nick Mattson made it 4-0 2:56 into the second period, but Alexey Marchenko got Russia on the scoreboard during a two-man advantage at 10:04 and Nail Yakupov made it a two-goal game at the 14-minute mark. Ignat Zemchenko brought Russia to within 4-3 with a power-play goal at 1:27 of the third period.

Beau Bennett added an insurance goal for the United States during a two-man power play at 15:29, and Colten St. Clair closed out the scoring with 11.1 seconds remaining.

Overall, the United States is outshooting Russia 38-16. Eric Mihalik earned the goaltending win and Sergey Kostenko was between the pipes for Russia.

The gold-medal game is Sunday at 5 p.m.