Olympics: USA men fall to Russia in bronze medal match

by Paul Soriano USA Volleyball Manager, Media Relations & Publications

An improbable run to an Olympic medal came to a sudden 3-0 end for the USA men's volleyball team Sunday afternoon at Peace and Friendship Stadium.

Alexey Kuleshov scored a match-high 16 points to lead Russia to a 25-22, 27-25, 25-16 victory in the bronze medal match.

In the gold medal final, Brazil defeated Italy in four sets (25-15, 24-26, 25-20, 25-22).

Serguey Tetyukhin added 13 points and Sergey Baranov added 12 points for Russia, which captured its second-consecutive Olympic medal. The Russians earned a silver medal at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia.

"We're certainly disappointed that we're not going to leave here with a medal," said Team USA head coach Doug Beal. "Russia played a wonderful match today and they recovered much better than we did from the semifinal loss.

"We played two very good sets here but we couldn't quite finish off either of them," he added. "And then we dropped way down in the third set and made a lot of foolish swings on balls that we weren't doing in the first two sets.

"We had some opportunities in both of them (first two sets) but couldn't get kills when we needed to get kills. Russia is a very strong team and when you let them play well, and they start to believe and they play with the confidence that they played with today, they really are one of the best teams in the world."

Clay Stanley (Honolulu, Hawaii) scored a team-high 13 points to lead the United States, who despite the loss surpassed nearly everyone's expectations by finishing in fourth place, its highest finish in 12 years.

More importantly, the team helped erase memories of a winless 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia, when the United States finished in a tie for 11th place with a 0-5 record.

"We played hard in this tournament," said middle blocker Ryan Millar (Palmdale, Calif.), a starter in 2000. "Apart from this match this was a pretty positive experience for us. Some of the guys in Sydney got a little vindicated because we played well and made the semifinals. We just came up short from where we wanted to be."

USA setter and team captain Lloy Ball (Woodburn, Ind.), playing in his final national team match, was able to end his USA career with his head held high despite Sunday's loss.

"Sydney was kind of a mental breakdown of a team that actually had more physicality than this team did," he recalled. "If you breakdown player by player we were a much stronger team in Sydney. We just lacked the collective heart as a group. With this group (in Athens), we've got three or four guys who are like 6-feet-3.going against three guys on the other side of the net who are plus seven feet.

"But this team has that collective heart," Ball explained. "And even though we had two disappointing losses here to end, I am extremely proud of the way this team played."

Sunday's match was a lot closer than the final 3-0 score would indicate. The United States had chances to win each of the first two sets but faltered down the stretch.

Trailing 18-16 in the first set, the Americans embarked on a 5-1 run to take a 21-19 lead. A kill by Stanley, a Russia hitting error, a dump by Ball and two kills by Reid Priddy (Richmond, Va.) gave Team USA the two-point advantage.

But Russia tied the score at 21-all after a service error by Ball and an illegal contact call on the Americans that forced a USA timeout.

Tom Hoff (Park Ridge, Ill.) put Team USA on top, 22-21, with a kill, but they would not score again as Russia finished the set with two kills, a block and an ace to take the early 1-0 advantage.

The second set was as close as the first set, with neither team able to forge more than a two-point lead. Trailing 22-21, the United States put together a 3-1 run on a kill by Kevin Barnett (Naperville, Ill.), a block by Barnett and a Russian service error. Set point, USA.

Alexander Kosarev posted a kill to tie the score at 24-all, but Millar gave the Americans another set point with a kill off Russia's block.

But once again, the United States squandered a late lead, and it cost them momentum in the match. Russia used a kill, a block and a disputed illegal contact call on Ball to finish the set with a 3-0 run en route to a 27-25 set victory.

Russia controlled the third set from the start. It rushed to an early 9-6 lead and never allowed the United States to get closer than three points the rest of the way.

Barnett finished with nine points, Millar added seven points and Hoff posted six points for Team USA, which won the last of three consecutive Olympic medals by taking the bronze at the 1992 Summer Games in Barcelona, Spain.

The 1984 and 1988 teams both won Olympic gold medals, but the Americans have not reached the top set of the podium since doing so in Seoul, South Korea.

Despite Sunday's disappointment, the Americans can be proud of what they accomplished in Athens and use it to build toward the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China.

"We got in the top four and we're happy about that," said Priddy. "I think our team gave everything we had, emotionally and physically, for this tournament and it just took too much out of us. We came up short today and it caused us to do some things we don't normally do as a team. That's disappointing. But we gave it all we had, and that's all we came here to do: to fight as hard as we could."

For more information and complete rankings, go to the USA Volleyball web site or the FIVB web site.