The Netherlands are still the darlings of the women’s volleyball tournament, but Team USA refused to be the next victim, digging deep for a hard-fought victory in five sets, NBC Olympics reported.
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Lefty Kelly Murphy with 18 points led four American players with double figures.
The top-ranked US women’s volleyball team rallied to top the Dutch in five sets and avoided the upset on Monday afternoon.
Two days after top-ranked Team USA produced a clean sweep of Puerto Rico, the squad found itself in an unfamiliar place: behind.
Italy and the United States each won one of the first two sets, but Italy ended up winning both the third and fourth sets 25-23. The decisive fifth set belonged to the Americans as three straight blocks on the defensive side propelled the US women to a 15-8 win.
The same issues plagued U.S.to start the match, as service and unforced errors handed Italy too many points early on.
Seasoned players Earvin Ngapeth and Antonin Rouzier led the French team who scored both a total of 13 points apiece.
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The women’s volleyball preliminaries continue Wednesday with Netherlands playing Italy at 10:30 a.m. ET and United States of America taking on Serbia following at 2 p.m.
