They were tied in 13-13 in the fifth when a missed serve and a well-placed spike gave Serbia the match (20-25, 25-17, 25-21, 15-13).
Advertisement
The U.S. will play the loser of today’s match between the Netherlands and China.
“What I can say after this game is this is a historic moment for me and for Serbian volleyball and everybody in Serbia for the first Olympic [volleyball] medal in our history”, Serbia coach Zoran Terzic said. We’re going to process that some, we get some time to grieve. We signed up to do hard things with USA. She paced Serbia out to a 2-1 lead, before the Americans rallied back to take the fourth set. The Americans will play the Netherlands for bronze.
“It was tough when Foluke went down”. I think we were a little distracted there for a second just because we care so much for her. “And now we have the next 48 hours to do so”. China needed six set points to take the opening frame on the way to a hard-fought 27-25, 23-25, 29-27, 25-23. The top-ranked Americans had fought back to force a fifth set against Serbia before falling short – short of the gold-medal goal that had driven her and others back to the national team for one more Olympic cycle.
Both United States and Serbia are coming off comfortable straight-set victories over Japan and Russian Federation, respectively, in the knock-out quarterfinals stage.
Tijana Boskovic and Brankica Mihajlovic form a prolific scoring tandem of a Serbian team that leads the pack as the best in the serves and blocking categories. Serbia cruised from there.
The Americans (7-1) lost their momentum when Akinradewo left with Serbia leading 8-5.
After Kiraly put his arm around her in a comforting gesture, Dietzen took a deep breath and continued after a few seconds: “Obviously we wanted to turn this around for her and everybody that’s a part of this program”, she said. “We adjusted our lineup, we adjusted it again, we adjusted it again”. Serbia eventually keyed in on the strategy, and Lowe tired enough that U.S. coach Karch Kiraly brought her out for a substitution.
Kiraly won a clutch challenge in the fifrth set to flip a one-point lead into a three-point United States of America advantage at 10-7, but things spun out of control from there.
From there, a stunning twist saw both Serbia and U.S. fault on serves, giving Serbia match point at 14-13.
Then it disappeared. The Americans reverted to the mental lapses that sabotaged them in the second and third sets and lost eight of the final 11 points.
Advertisement
“That was probably the best match Serbia’s ever played so props to them”, USA’s Kayla Barnsworth said. Aside from Olympic silver medal finishes in 1984, 2008 and 2012, Team USA earned bronze at the 1992 Olympic Games.
