SYDNEY — The Little Team That Could couldn't quite do it Thursday.
The U.S. women's volleyball team couldn't quite cover all the gaping slots in the court found by scorching Russian spikes. It couldn't quite overcome an abundance of unforced errors. It couldn't quite match its fourth-set rally in the deciding fifth game. And it couldn't quite find a way to beat a taller and talented Russian team in semifinal action at the Sydney Entertainment Center.
Score the five-set victory for Russia 25-15, 23-25, 25-15, 26-28, 15-8.
Labeled as the Cinderella squad of the Sydney Olympics tournament after winning its first four preliminary-pool games, the Americans seemed ready to repeat their successes from a thrilling quarterfinal triumph two nights before over Korea.
In the semifinal sequel somewhat similar to the Korean contest, the United States rallied from deficit after deficit, forced a deciding fifth set and even led midway in the final set, only to find itself frighteningly close to defeat.
Unlike the Korean quarterfinal, the Americans couldn't answer the Russian attack in the end and lost the fifth set.
"We didn't play as well as we had in the tournament," said Charlene Tagaloa, the former BYU and Pleasant Grove High standout who saw late-game action in the three final sets. "Russia came out, and they were the better team tonight, it's sad to say."
It's not a surprise that Russia is in the gold-medal match, where the world's second-ranked team will face top-ranked Cuba, which had its own five-set semifinal thriller against third-ranked Brazil.
The surprise is the fact that the 10th-ranked United States — a 12-member team with 10 first-time Olympians and a squad whose summer-play signature was inconsistency against top international foes — even made the medal round, let alone the semifinals.
"Nobody ever believed we would have made it this far," Tagaloa said. "But we believed we could, and so we're very disappointed in our loss."
Russia looked like it would need only the three-set minimum to dispatch Team USA, cruising to a 25-15 victory in the first set. But the Americans returned the favor in the second set, holding on for a 25-23 win before the Russians put another 25-15 pasting on the underdogs in the third game.
Needing only one more set to advance to Saturday's gold-medal match, the Russians rushed out to leads of 15-9, 18-13 and 22-18 before a spirited U.S. attack caught up and eventually claimed the fourth set at 28-26.
"We just sat there and said, 'You know, USA never gives up, we don't give up, we can win this game — we're going to,' " said Tagaloa. "Everybody pulled in."
The fifth set started out as a back-and-forth battle, with the United States enjoying its last lead at 7-6. However, the Russians ripped off nine of the next 10 points for the set and match.
Russia used its height advantage, with 6-foot-3 Lioubov Chachkova, 6-4 Elena Godina and 6-3 Evguenia Artamonova combining for all but nine of Russia's 70 attack points. All but three players on the Russian roster measure at least 6-foot-2 — the same height as the United States' three tallest players.
Danielle Scott led the United States with 16 attacks, while former Highland High standout Logan Tom added 13.
A distracting sideshow to the semifinal was the Bobby Knight-like antics of Russia coach Nikolai Karpol, whose screaming at his players from the sidelines during play and in the huddle during time-outs earned him resounding choruses of boos and catcalls from spectators. While Karpol didn't grab or shake his players as he had in previous games, he wasn't above calling them the equivalent of cattle and such, with his constant ravings resulting in a face as red as his players' jerseys.
Prior to the Russia-Cuba gold-medal match Saturday afternoon, the United States will face Brazil in a game to decide third and fourth place for the Sydney Olympics.
"To get it back is very hard," said the United States' Kerri Walsh. "We're going to just forget about these other matches. No one wants to lose the last match."
E-MAIL: taylor@desnews.com