WEST VALLEY CITY ? For 20 seconds of Monday's finals round Olympics game, Belarus owned Team USA. Heck, for 20 minutes the Belarussians even owned the lead.

Want a Miracle on Ice circa 2002? This was it in the making. The little team of nobodies that could, beating the big bad boys from a hockey powerhouse. Sound familiar?

"I was thinking back in history of hockey about how many times an underestimated team with a great goalie comes up with a big win," said U.S. star forward Brett Hull. "It was a little bit scary."

Until the second period started.

Forty-six seconds into the middle stanza, Hull ? who else? ? came up with a big-time goal for the frazzled favorites. Belarus goalie Andrei Mezin was busy fishing the puck out of the net the rest of the game, as the U.S. turned the underdog feel-good story of the day into an 8-1 laugher.

The victory ? combined with Russia's 3-1 loss to Finland ? clinched Group D's No. 1 seed for the U.S. That puts Team USA against Germany, Group C's worst team, in the single-elimination quarterfinals Wednesday at 4 p.m. in the E Center.

After blowing out Finland and Belarus and tying Russia in an emotionally charged game, the Americans can smell one of those medals they've failed to get since the golden year of 1980. The U.S. is optimistic ? and confident.

"We feel we can beat any team in this town," said U.S. forward Jeremy Roenick. "We dominated defensively in the first three games."

They were, however, on the other end of defensive domination for the first 20 minutes Monday.

Mezin was amazin' in the opening period, holding the U.S. scoreless despite getting peppered with 15 shots. He even denied Hull on a point-blank opportunity.

"He just kept making save after save," Hull said. "We were getting tons of great chances. We just had to get one and it would come."

And come it did.

John LeClair flirted with his second Olympic hat trick, putting the U.S. up 3-1 with consecutive rebound goals. Scott Young and Bill Guerin joined in the scoring frenzy, each punching in a pair of goals. Adam Deadmarsh lit the lamp once for the U.S.

The gratifying part for the Americans wasn't that they scored loads of goals. It was that they stuck together after the shocking beginning. Belarus' Dmitry Pankov slapped the puck right past Tom Barrasso for a score on the first shot, just 20 seconds into the game. The U.S. fired at will after that but could only pile up frustration, not points, in the first.

"We got down there," said U.S. captain Chris Chelios, "but we didn't panic."

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They were patient and just kept pelting the puck toward Mezin, who faced 48 shots.

Young credited Guerin for his little pep talk between the first and second periods: "Billy got up and just said we've got to stick together, no pointing fingers at each other. We've got to stay composed."

And now ? when it starts to really count ? more than ever.

E-MAIL: jody@desnews.com

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