Olympics
August 9, 2024
PARIS — First-time Olympian Taylor Averill just shook his head.
“What an emotional roller coaster the Olympics is,” Averill said with a laugh. “I mean, dude, we’re used to playing two, maybe three games most in a row. We played six games in a short amount of time and the most emotional games of your life.
“I could not be more ready for a vacation. I’m ready.”
Well, the entire USA men’s team can take that vacation after winning the bronze medal Friday at the Paris Olympics with a sweep of Italy. And it was not just any sweep, but a knock-down, drag-out volleyball slugfest the USA happened to win.
“From point one,” TJ DeFalco said. “A dogfight.”
Quick note: Veteran opposite Matt Anderson, who at 37 had a fantastic tournament, said he’s on board to continue to Los Angeles 2028. Some of teammates, however, are likely done with national-team play, but nothing was confirmed here.
The recap follows and so do notes about the men’s gold-medal match Saturday, a semifinal women’s victory for Italy to get into the gold-medal final against the USA on Sunday, and some key stats.
USA men, DeFalco bounce back and sweep Italy
When the Americans lost to Poland in five in the semifinals on Wednesday, TJ DeFalco had his worst match of the tournament with four kills and two errors in nine attacks.
His team needed its best offensive weapon against Italy and DeFalco responded with a team-high 12 kills, including the attacks that ended each of the three sets. The 25-23, 30-28, 25-24 — and, yes, it was that close throughout — gave the USA its second bronze medal in two Olympics.
The USA won gold in 1984 and 1988, bronze in 1992, won it all again in 2008, and took bronze in 2016. In Tokyo in 2021, the American failed to get out of pool play. The goal here, of course, was a gold medal, and there was no hiding the disappointment of the loss to Poland
“It was really hard to come after that game against Poland,” said veteran libero Erik Shoji, who had 12 digs. “Physically, mentally, emotionally, I don’t know if I was ready until right when the first point started. We all just wanted to battle as hard as we can. This group has been together a long time and we wanted to finish on a high and that’s what we did.
“It was a little stressful, but we got it done.”
That was not lost on coach John Speraw.
“I’m proud of the men for the ability to regroup, reset, and compete with the energy that they played with today,” Speraw said. “I thought it was really impressive.”
Aaron Russell, who played in Rio but was hurt for Tokyo, had 11 kills, three blocks and ace. DeFalco, who obviously wears his volleyball emotions on his sleeve, also had seven digs.
“I’m proud of him,” Speraw said. “The Olympics are really hard. Really hard. There’s just so much emotion. There’s such urgency to every match and it’s hard because you don’t have time to get in the gym and work on something and flush something out if you get into a bad rhythm. For him to come back was just fantastic.”
“Somehow everybody pulled it together and did what we needed to do,” DeFalco said.
Max Holt, believed to have played his last volleyball, had six kills, four blocks, four digs and one ace. Holt, like Anderson and Russell, played at Penn State.
Anderson had eight kills and six digs and Averill had seven kills and a block. Setter Micah Christenson had a kill, a block and eight digs.
Italy’s Alessandro Michieletto had 16 kills and an ace and Yuri Romano had 17 kiils as the two left-handers continually punished the USA. But their teammates combined for 14 kills.
“Michieletto is a once-in-a-lifetime talent, to be as big as he is, a lefty, passing with the ball control, the block and the fact that he’s 22 or 23 years old,” Anderson said. “It’s scary for the future but great for Italian volleyball.”
Neither team led by more than two points in the first set. It was tied 22-22 when the USA took the lead on a serving error and Anderson hit a cut shot from the right side that gave the Americans a two-point advantage for the first time. After an Italy kills, DeFalco hit a monster of a cross-court shot.
The second set wasn’t much different but lasted longer as both teams battled but couldn’t separate. At 25-25, Shoji got hit in the left shoulder by a shot that had such impact it went untouched all the way back to the Italy side of the floor in the back left corner. The obnoxious arena DJ — which is a story for another day — had one of his better moments when he played, “Return to Sender,” the Elvis song.
But the set was far from over and didn’t end until DeFalco crushed a ball to end a long rally for the 30-28 victory.
Finally, in the third, there six ties after 15-15 and the match ended on a big dig by Shoji and yet another set-ending kill by DeFalco.
“That was a long, really tight three-set match,” Speraw said.
Speraw, for one, deserves a vacation, too. His UCLA team capped the NCAA men’s season in early May with its second straight title. He took two whole days off and then got into the USA gym in Anaheim.
Anderson is ready for a break, but he will be returning to his pro team, Ziraat Bankkart in Ankara, Tûrkiye, this fall.
His ambition, he said, was rest, beers and pushing back to head to Turkiye as long as possible.
“Miller Lite if you want to sponsor me,” Anderson said with a laugh. “I’m going to dive into family time, maybe even turn my phone off for a couple of weeks and just be with my wife and kids and loved ones.”
But with no retirement in sight.
“I’m tentatively signing on for L.A. 2028,” he said, “but taking it year by year. Taking it year by year to see personally how I’m doing physically, mentally, how my family is doing, because I won’t let volleyball take away from that.”
Saturday’s volleyball at South Paris Arena 1
The men’s gold-medal match is at 1 p.m. when Poland plays France, and the place will be rocking for Le Bleu. The arena has been a hard sellout for every match of the tournament, but when France plays the volume rises and the playing of La Marseillaise, the French national anthem, is something else.
The women’s bronze-medal match follows at 5:15 when Brazil plays Türkiye.
Italy women go for first medal after sweeping Serbia
In the second semifinal Thursday, Italy swept Serbia for the second time in four days, this time 25-22, 25-19, 25-22. It is the first time Italy will not only play for gold, but win a medal.
The USA-Italy women’s final is at 1 p.m. Sunday (7 a.m. Eastern, 4 a,m. Pacific). Only six countries have won Olympic women’s gold: the USA, China, Cuba, Brazil, Japan and the former USSR.
Italy (5-0) got 21 kills from Paola Egonu, who had a block and two aces. Myriam Sylla had 11 kills and Sarah Fahr had five kills and four blocks.
Türkiye superstar opposite Melissa Vargas, who leads the tournament in kills, was held to 17. She was averaging an incredible 26.5 kills per match.
When Italy and the USA played on June 21 in the Volleyball Nations League quarterfinals in Thailand, Italy swept 25-21, 25-21, 25-23. Egonu had 17 kills, two blocks and an ace ace, Sylla had nine kills and a block, and Far had five kills and four blocks, eerily similar to their stats against Serbia on Thursday.
In that VNL match, Avery Skinner led the USA with 10 kills and an ace, Haleigh Washington had six kills and three blocks and Jordan Thompson had eight kills.
An opposite women’s tournament
You don’t have to be an opposite or lefty or both, but it helps. Through the women’s semifinals, the top five attackers in the women’s tournament were:
- Melissa Vargas of Türkiye (123 kills), who is a righty opposite
- Tijana Boskovic of Serbia (93), a lefty opposite
- Annie Drews of the USA (85), a lefty opposite
- Li Yingying of China (80), who is a left-handed outside
- Paola Egonu of Italy (77), a right-handed opposite
The USA’s right-handed outsides, Avery Skinner and Kathyrn Plummer, are eighth (57) and ninth (55), respectively.
On the men’s side, the USA’s Matt Anderson was third in kills with 72 and Aaron Russell was sixth with 67.
The USA’s big blockers
Through the semis, Chiaka Ogbogu topped all women’s blockers with 21, an average of 4.2 per match. Teammate Haleigh Washington was tied for fifth with 13. Plummer is ninth with nine.
On the men’s side, Taylor Averill was tied for first with Germany’s Gyorgy Grozer with 15.
