Poland dashes USA men’s Olympic volleyball gold-medal hopes

PARIS  — Bronze. “We came here to win,” USA coach John Speraw said. “I’m very disappointed.” You would expect nothing less from a team that aspired to win the Paris Olympics men’s volleyball tournament and the gold medal that comes with it. Now Poland gets a shot at the gold while the USA goes for […]

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PARIS  — Bronze.

“We came here to win,” USA coach John Speraw said. “I’m very disappointed.”

You would expect nothing less from a team that aspired to win the Paris Olympics men’s volleyball tournament and the gold medal that comes with it.

Now Poland gets a shot at the gold while the USA goes for bronze against the loser of the later match Wednesday at Paris Arena South 1 between France and Italy.

Speraw and his veterans know the deal. In Rio in 2016, they also lost in the semifinals and had to gird up and beat Russia in five for the bronze medal. In Tokyo in 2021 they didn’t get to the quarterfinals.

The shot at gold was theirs for the taking Wednesday, especially when the Americans led two sets to one and led in the fourth, the last time at 21-20.

But ultimately Poland rallied to win that set and took the upper hand in the fifth to came away with a  25-23, 25-27, 14-25, 25-23, 15-13 victory.

“I’ll have to go back and look at that fourth set, but it’s what happens in these matches when a team is down,” Speraw said. “You’re up 2-1 and a team has nothing to lose at that point and they get very aggressive. And they got very aggressive with their serves and they were successful. And when you have servers like they have who get successful it’s very, very challenging.”

The USA got another fabulous effort from 37-year-old opposite Matt Anderson, whose performance in these Games belies his age. He led with 23 kills, hit .456, had an ace, and made some key digs throughout, finishing with eight.

He agreed with his coach’s assessment.

“That’s what they do. They serve hard and they put us in trouble and we didn’t come up with the points late in that fourth set,” Anderson said.

Aaron Russell had 18 kills and two blocks, Max Holt had nine kills, a block and two aces, and Thomas Jaeschke, who subbed for TJ DeFalco in the third set, finished with nine kills and a block. Taylor Averill had five kills, two blocks and an ace and DeFalco had four kills, hitting .133.

Setter Micah Christenson, who had seven digs, added a block, and libero Erik Shoji had 10 digs.

“It was USA vs. Poland,” said Shoji, who plays professionally in Poland. “We were in for an epic match. Tough how it ended.”

The fourth set was tied 22-22 when Poland’s Wilfredo Leon blasted a kill, aced Shoji and then Poland won on a kill by Tomasz Fornal. 

The USA trailed 10-7 in the fifth and was down 14-10 when Jaeschke got a kill, Anderson had a kill from the back-row and got to 14-13 when Leon air mailed a spike attempt. 

But Leon ended it with a kill off the block, 22nd of the match. Leon hit .463 and had two blocks and two aces. Norbert Huber had 12 kills, a block and two aces, and Fornal finished with 12 kills and an ace. Bartosz Kurek had nine kills and two blocks.

“I thought we showed a lot of poise in the fifth set because we didn’t have a lot of momentum going into it,” Speraw said. “We were down 14-11 and still gave ourselves an opportunity.

“Leon is very, very good. He had a dip but he came back and played very well in the fifth set.”

Now the USA goes for bronze, which Anderson said simply, “it’s better than nothing. A bronze medal is something that you’re proud to have and proud to win. It’s a medal that you have to win that last match to get it. I don’t want to leave with nothing.”

Shoji agreed.

“It’s physically and mentally exhausting that last match and we have to come back in two days and play,” Shoji said. “We wanted to be playing for a gold and that sucks. But bronze is important and we’re going to do everything we can to win that one.”

Friday’s match against Italy/France is at 4 p.m. local time, 10 a.m. Eastern, 7 a.m. Pacific.

“It’s one of the great challenges in this event when you have hopes for gold and you’ve got to regroup mentally and go compete,” Speraw said. “We have a day to think about that and a day to recover.

“In Rio part of the devastation was how many opportunities we had and let it slip away. Here we played a great team that played great at the end. Hopefully that allows us to rebound a little bit and get focused on the match.”

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