Brazil rolls over U.S. in semifinal match

The Americans meet Russia in Sunday's bronze medal volleyball game.
ATHENS, Greece (AP) -- Brazil reminded everyone that it's ranked first in the world of men's volleyball with a dominant three-set win in the semifinals.
There would be no incredible comeback for the United States this time -- just a sound beating by this hungry, fast, hard-hitting team from South America.
With Gilberto Godoy Filho, Dante Guimaraes Amaral and Gustavo Endres leading a lightning-quick attack, the Brazilians crushed the Americans' hope for a gold medal Friday with a 25-16, 25-17, 25-23 victory.
"I don't think we reached our full potential today," outside hitter Reid Priddy said, "but we're going to put it behind us and start thinking about Sunday."
Brazil, Italy in final
Brazil will play second-ranked Italy in the final at Peace and Friendship Stadium, and the United States takes on Russia for the bronze medal.
"That's why they're No. 1 in the world," middle blocker Ryan Millar said. "We thought that we could come in here and play well and push them to the limit. ... But the first two games, they played too well."
Though it beat Brazil in four sets to wind up the preliminary round, the U.S. team was still the underdog in this one. The crowd was once again in the opponent's favor, with Brazil's yellow-and-green-clad fan section outnumbering the Americans in attendance -- and some leftover boos from the locals still stinging over Greece's loss to the U.S. team in the quarterfinals.
After beating the Greeks on Wednesday by rallying from a 20-12 deficit in the fourth set -- while down two sets to one -- and fighting off match point once in the fifth, the U.S. team's impressive run ran into a big roadblock.
"We were able to undermine the way they played," Amaral said. "We served and blocked better, and this was the key to our success."
First medal since 1992
Still, the Americans will play for their first medal since 1992, when they won a bronze in Barcelona.
"I'm happy with our team," coach Doug Beal said. "I think they've fought very hard the whole tournament, and I expect that we'll do that again on Sunday."
The U.S. team had some extra motivation to win, believing that Brazil gave up and lost an otherwise meaningless match on Monday against the Americans in pool play to clear Russia from its half of the bracket and get the United States-Greece winner instead. Captain Lloy Ball said then that he hoped Brazil lost the rest of its matches.
The Brazilians claimed their poor performance was due to the distraction of a looming quarterfinal matchup with Poland, a team they wound up sweeping.
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