USA Women Stun Cuba, Qualify for Olympic Quarterfinals

ATHENS, Greece (Aug. 22, 2004) ? The No. 1 team in the world made its Olympic debut Sunday night...on the last night of pool play.

In a match it absolutely had to win in order to reach the quarterfinal round, the USA women’s national volleyball team demolished three-time defending Olympic gold medalist Cuba in three sets at Peace and Friendship Stadium.

Logan Tom (Salt Lake City, Utah) scored a match-high 19 points in the 25-22, 25-12, 25-19 victory that took just 1:07 to complete. With the win, the United States finished fourth in Pool B with a record of 2-3 and erased memories of two-straight five-set losses in preliminary play that put its hopes of advancing to the medal round in jeopardy.

Team USA will now play Brazil in the tournament quarterfinals on Tuesday, Aug. 24 at 1:30 p.m. (CDT). It will be a rematch of the bronze medal match from the 2000 Olympic Games won by Brazil in three sets (25-18, 25-22, 25-21).

"I thought it was going to be very tough...not like this...not 3-0," said an amazed Team USA head coach Toshi Yoshida. "I never thought about 3-0. But our girls played very well. We are together now. We have no fear of anything. We have nothing to lose, actually. So I think we will play well against Brazil."

The United States, ranked No. 1 in the world heading into the tournament, hardly looked like the world’s best team after struggling to a 1-3 record in pool play going into Sunday’s must-win match.

But facing unexpected elimination, and perhaps inspired by very vocal Cuban fans, Team USA came out ready to fight.

Trailing 13-10 in the first set, the Americans put together a 10-4 run and forced the Cubans to use both of their timeouts, first at 13-all and again down 20-17. Cuba regrouped and tied the match at 20-all before Tayyiba Haneef (Laguna Hills, Calif.) took over.

Team USA took a 22-20 lead on a Haneef kill and a service ace from Keba Phipps (Las Vegas, Nev.). Cuba tied the score with a kill and ace of its own, but could only watch as the Haneef blasted two kills and Tom closed out the set by killing one of three Cuban free-balls of USA serves in the first stanza.

"We came out and we had our backs against the wall," said Haneef, who scored nine points on eight kills and one block. "We heard the crowd cheering?all for Cuba?so I think we had a lot of motivation right there to just come out and destroy them. I think played one of the best matches we have had so far."

The Americans owned the second set, racing to an 8-1 lead on four kills by Heather Bown (Yorba Linda, Calif.), a block by Tom, a kill by Haneef and a pair of Cuban errors. Cuba could get no closer than five points the rest of the way as the inspired Americans closed out the set with two kills from Nancy Metcalf (Hull, Iowa), an ace from Tom and another free-ball kill by Phipps.

"We just came out and fought for every single point," said libero Stacy Sykora (Burleson, Texas), who led the team with seven digs. "We’re treating every point from here on out like it’s the last point, because it could have been our last points tonight, and we know that."

Cuba managed to play better in the third set but the United States maintained its fire and intensity after snapping a 4-4 tie and never relinquished the lead for the rest of the match.

"I think the real key is that our energy surpassed theirs," said Bown, who scored nine points on eight kills and one block. "They’re usually a very emotional team, and you can see it when they play. They get real hyped when they get kills and they’re banging balls and tonight we out-energized them.

"Our serving was great, our blocking was good...every aspect of our game just kind of clicked tonight, along with our chemistry that we’ve been working on the last couple nights," she added. "It was great out there. It was really, really fun to play."

Tom had 15 kills, three service aces and one block, while Danielle Scott (Baton Rouge, La.) and Phipps added eight points apiece.

Next up for Team USA is Brazil, which lost just two sets to Italy en route to finishing first in Pool A with a perfect 5-0 record.

Even though the last time the two teams met in Olympic competition was four years ago, that match is still fresh in the minds of the six returning members of the USA’s 2000 Olympic team: Robyn Ah Mow-Santos (Honolulu, Hawaii), Bown, Tara Cross-Battle (Houston, Texas), Scott, Sykora and Tom.

"For a lot of the girls from Sydney it’s a revenge match," said Bown. "If we beat them, they’re out. They won the bronze medal in 2000; we lost to them in that match. We played really well against them in the Grand Prix (last month), losing to them in the semifinals in five sets by two points.

"If we can keep up our energy, keep up our tactics and execute plays well I think we will come out on top."

"We’re going to go in, we’re going to fight against Brazil and we going to play USA volleyball," added Sykora. "They’re going to do what they have to do on their side; we’re going to focus on our side. We’re hoping for a good match."