USA Rebounds with 3-1 Win over Germany

ATHENS, Greece (Aug. 16, 2004) ? For the second match in a row, Germany had upset on its mind in women’s Olympic volleyball action. But a determined American squad led by Tayyiba Haneef, Keba Phipps and Logan Tom left the Germans upset in the end.

Haneef (Laguna Hills, Calif.) scored 19 points, Phipps (Las Vegas, Nev.) posted 16 points and Tom (Salt Lake City, Utah) added 14 points as the USA women’s national volleyball team earned its first win of the 2004 Olympic Games with a 3-1 victory Monday night at Peace and Friendship Stadium.

Haneef’s 17th kill of the night on match point in the fourth set put the exclamation point on Team USA’s 25-22, 25-22, 22-25, 27-25 win just two nights after the team began competition in Athens with a disappointing 3-1 loss to China.

“It was very good for us to win tonight,” said USA team captain Tara Cross-Battle (Houston, Texas), who scored three points off the bench. “Germany is a very strong team. I think they will probably be underestimated by a lot of teams. Considering we just played them in the Grand Prix we knew that they were going to be tough to beat.

“It’s a big confidence booster, especially for our rookies that have not had a win yet in the Olympics,” added Cross-Battle, the first four-time Olympian in USA Volleyball history. “I think it will only get better.”

One of Team USA’s first-time Olympians, Ogonna Nnamani (Normal, Ill.), provided a spark off the bench for the second match in a row. Nnamani scored six points in the final two sets after posting nine points in the loss against China last Saturday night.

So how did she feel after earning her first win?

“It’s great! It’s very tough to get a win because everybody wants the game so bad,” said Nnamani. “Every team here works so hard preparing for the Olympics. Every point is just a battle and it’s just great to have a win.”

The defeat ended Germany’s hopes of starting the Games with two improbable wins. In their opening match on Aug. 14, Germany stunned three-time defending Olympic gold medalist in five sets.

But the Germans did not go down without a fight. After dropping the first two sets, Germany came back to win the third set and excite the boisterous crowd.

Team USA fought right back in the fourth set after falling behind 14-10, going on a 6-0 run to take a 16-14 lead into the second technical timeout. The teams alternated points until kills by Phipps and Nnamani gave the Americans a 20-17 lead and forced German head coach Hee Wan Lee to call a timeout.

The Germans came out of the break to score three quick points on a kill and two blocks, and then saw the United States counter with a Phipps kill and a block and a kill by Tom as the Americans forged a 24-21 lead.

Staring at three match points, Germany stormed right back behind team captain Angelina Grun to score the next four points and take a 25-24 lead. Then Haneef took over. She sandwiched a pair of kills around Heather Bown’s (Yorba Linda. Calif.) third service ace of the night to end the match?and Germany’s dreams of starting the tournament with a 2-0 mark.

Grun led all scorers with 20 points while teammate Birgit Thumm added 16 points.

Up next for Team USA is a 9 a.m. match on Wednesday, Aug. 18 against the Dominican Republic.

“The Dominican Republic is a very tough team; we’ve played them a lot of times,” said Nnamani. “They’re very fiery, very emotional and they’re going to want to win just as bad.”

In other Pool B action on Monday, China (2-0) swept the Dominican Republic (0-2) in the first match of the day while Russia (1-0) and Cuba (0-1) did battle in the late match.

In Pool A, Brazil and Italy both improved to 2-0 with sweeps over Kenya (0-2) and Japan (0-2), respectively, while Korea (1-1) handed Greece (1-1) a 3-1 loss.