Word on the street is that the USA softball team got together with the vball team and gave them a pep talk. That's a nice gesture from the softball squad.
This is from Tom Pingel's updates from Athens (this particular entry hasn't posted to the USA Volleyball website yet, but should be up in a few days, they're a little behind in updating his stuff):
Monday, August 23 - 12:40a
The USA Women's volleyball team knew they had one chance to advance in
these Olympic Games - beat Cuba. The 3-time defending Olympic Champions
were no match for the American girls on this night as USA played a solid
match in defeating Cuba 3:0, 25-22, 25-12, 25-19 in front of a raucous
and largely partisan Cuban crowd.
The match resembled that in which the same two teams played for the
Grand Prix bronze medal back in about "Olympic 4". In that match, USA
dominated the Cubans and it was much the same tonight.
USA started the same way as usual and other that the Berg/Metcalf for
Haneef/Ah Mow-Santos double sub, it was the line-up for the entire
match. No need to sub when the players on the court are performing at
such a high level. A particular bright spot was the play of Keba
Phipps. This was easily the best all-around game I've seen from her
this year. Passing was solid, good defense and smart play at the net.
This now sets up a USA v Brazil match up on Tuesday - time yet to be
determined.
The crowd was probably the largest we've seen for our matches. There
were very few "U-S-A" chants heard until late in the 3rd game - not
because they weren't being chanted, mostly because they were being
drowned out by the Cuban fans. May of us wondered, "How did so many
Cubans get off the island?" We decided that while many were Cuban, many
were also Greek, Dominican, Brazilian, and German. Especially German,
as a Cuban win tonight would have meant that Germany advanced to the
quarters in our spot. All was cool until some "Go Home, US" chants
sprang up when it was apparent that it was our night. Sorry to spoil
the fun, but the USA Women are still alive and must be regarded as a
very dangerous team in this tournament.
Most every person wearing "USA" knows they are part of the USA Team -
not just the volleyball team, or the track team, or the wrestling team,
etc.. This made very clear last Wednesday night when some veteran
members of the USA Softball Team called a team meeting with our girls in
a meeting room in the village. They simply wanted to let the volleyball
team that all was not lost as they were in a similar situation in Sydney
- needing to win to advance after a tough loss - and were able to
accomplish the goal. They discussed the process they went through to
become a unit that could not be stopped rather than a bunch of players
on a team. They even went to the point of their entire team and their
families planning to attend our match with Russia. Unfortunately, 75
tickets were not readily accessible. It has been abundantly evident
that the meeting has made an impression our players beginning with the
effort put forth in the 3:2 loss to Russia, as well as tonight's win.
It was a different team than the one that floundered to defeat on
Wednesday morning. A classy act by a classy group of ladies. There is
little doubt why the USA Softball team is largely regarded as the best
in the world. Now we know that this has more meaning than just on the
diamond. They go for gold against Australia on Monday.
On the sand, our lone remaining men's team of Dax Holdren and Stein
Metzger were eliminated from the tournament in losing their quarterfinal
match to Switzerland 2:0. Both Women's teams advanced to the semifinals
with the team of Walsh/May defeating Canada 2:0 and Youngs/McPeak
knocking off Germany 2:0. The two USA teams will now play each other on
Monday to advance to the gold medal match.
The men will play on Monday evening at 9:30p for positioning into the
quarterfinal draw. Currently, the men are tied with Russia on matches
(2-2) and sets (8-7) with Russia having a better point percentage than
USA by 0.001. This tie will be broken as USA will play Brazil and
Russia faces Italy.
Tom
