ATHENS, Greece — The United States softball team remained unbeaten for the Olympics — and for one day, Japan was perfect, too.
The Americans beat Taiwan on Friday for their seventh straight Olympic shutout and 77th win in a row.
Cat Osterman struck out 10 in six innings, and the United States completed a perfect run through the preliminary round, setting up a U.S.-Australia showdown in the semifinals.
Later, Yukiko Ueno did Osterman one better, pitching the first perfect game in Olympic history to lead Japan past China. Ueno struck out nine.
Tanya Harding replaced Brooke Wilkins to lead Australia over Greece, and Lauren Bay threw a two-hit shutout in Canada's win over Italy.
The Americans are dominating in a way never seen before. Through seven games, they've outscored the opposition 41-0, allowed just 11 hits and permitted three runners to reach third.
WOMEN'S SOCCER
United States 2, Japan 1: Abby Wambach finished a four-on-zero breakaway in the 59th minute, her 17th goal in her last 18 games, to give the U.S. women's soccer team a quarterfinal victory over Japan. The Americans will play Germany in the semifinals Monday. The game is a rematch of last year's World Cup semifinal, won 3-0 by eventual champion Germany.
Kristine Lilly scored in the 43rd minute for the Americans. Emi Yamamoto scored for Japan in the 48th.
Germany came from behind to beat Nigeria 2-1 on goals by Steffi Jones and Conny Pohlers.
Cristiane and Formiga had two goals each for Brazil, which blanked Mexico 5-0 and advanced to play Sweden in the other semifinal. Sweden beat Australia 2-1.
WOMEN'S BASKETBALL
United States 71, Spain 58: Challenged for the first time in these Olympics, the U.S. women's basketball team fought through foul problems and long stretches of cold shooting to clinch first place in its preliminary group with a victory over Spain.
The United States had won its first three games in Athens by an average of 31 points, but nothing came easily against Spain. Lisa Leslie, Tina Thompson and Yolanda Griffith led a 10-2 fourth-quarter run that put the Americans firmly in control.
Russia clinched a berth in quarterfinals by dominating much-smaller Japan inside. Former Utah Starzz player Elena Baranova scored 22 points and Ilona Korstin added 20 for Russia, the 2003 European champions.
WOMEN'S VOLLEYBALL
Ekaterina Gamova had 28 points and the match-winning kill to lead powerful Russia to a five-set victory over the United States, (20-25, 25-17, 20-25, 25-18, 15-11). The Russians clinched a spot in the quarterfinals and will finish the pool-play portion of the tournament against China on Sunday. The Americans must beat three-time defending gold medalist Cuba to move on. The Cubans clinched a berth in the medal round with a three-set victory over the Dominican Republic, and China did the same by sweeping Germany.
TENNIS
Unseeded American Mardy Fish beat No. 16 Fernando Gonzalez of Chile 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 in the Olympic semifinals. Gonzalez had pulled off a third-round upset of Fish's teammate and friend, Andy Roddick, who was in the stands rooting. In Sunday's final, Fish will play No. 10 Nicolas Massu, who defeated Taylor Dent 7-6 (5), 6-1 in another U.S.-Chile match.
In the women's semifinals, Belgium's Justine Henin-Hardenne rallied from a 5-1 deficit in the third set to beat Russia's Anastasia Myskina 7-5, 5-7, 8-6 in a nearly three-hour match between the past two French Open champions. France's Amelie Mauresmo advanced by defeating unseeded Australian Alicia Molik 7-6 (8), 6-3.
ARCHERY
Park Sung-hyun shot a 10 on the last arrow of the women's team competition at Panathinaiko Stadium, giving South Korea a 241-240 win over China and its fifth consecutive gold medal in the event. Taiwan defeated France 242-228 to win the bronze.
The Koreans have won the gold at every games since the team event was added to the Olympic program in 1988 in Seoul and all 11 women's archery golds since their first appearance in the sport in 1984.
BADMINTON
Kim Dong-moon and Ha Tae-kwon of South Korea won the badminton gold medal in men's doubles, beating compatriots Lee Dong-soo and Yoo Yong-sung. Indonesia's Eng Hian and Flandy Limpele won the bronze medal.
BASEBALL
Claudio Liverziani hit a two-run homer in the top of the ninth inning to put the Italians ahead 5-4, and they held on for their first tournament win. Peter Nyari pitched 2 2/3 innings of scoreless relief to earn the win. Yoshinobu Takahashi went 2-for-4 with three RBIs and two runs scored as Japan routed Canada, 9-1. Tsuyoshi Wada shut out Canada for seven innings while striking out seven and allowing just three hits.
BEACH VOLLEYBALL
Delivering their best performance of the tournament, Dax Holdren and Stein Metzger upset fourth-seeded Germans Jonas Reckermann and Markus Dieckmann 21-16, 19-21, 15-13 in their first match of the medal round. The Americans next face Swiss pair Stefan Kobel and Patrick Heuscher, who ousted Joao Brehna and Luis Maia of Portugal 21-18, 21-19.
BOXING
Vicente Escobedo became the fourth U.S. boxer eliminated from the Olympics. The lightweight lost to Rovshan Huseynov of Azerbaijan, 36-18. Cuban fighters, meanwhile, continued to roll, winning three more fights to improve to 14-1. Seventeen-year-old British lightweight Amir Khan, the only member of his country's boxing team, was impressive for a second time in a 37-21 win over Dimitar Stilianov of Bulgaria.
CANOE-KAYAK
Pavol and Peter Hochschorner took the gold medal again in pairs canoe slalom, winning by more than 3 seconds. The brothers from Slovakia beat Marcus Becker and Stefan Henze of Germany by 3.82 seconds. Jaroslav Volf and Ondrej Stepanek of the Czech Republic took bronze.
DIVING
Laura Wilkinson saved her best dive for last, and the defending Olympic gold medalist advanced past the preliminaries of 10-meter platform. The 26-year-old Texan came through on her final dive, a backward 2 1/2 somersault with 1 1/2 twists. Her spins were crisp and her entry smooth, resulting in scores of 7.5 and 8.0 across the board. That was enough to move the American up to 13th with 314.19 points.
SHOOTING
American Matt Emmons won the gold medal in the 50-meter prone rifle competition with a score of 703.3. Christian Lusch of Germany won silver with 702.2, and Sergei Martynov of Belarus took bronze. Lioubov Galkina of Russia won gold in the 50-meter rifle three-position event with an Olympic-record score of 688.4. Valentina Turisini of Italy won silver and Wang Chengyi of China took bronze.
TABLE TENNIS
China's team of Wang Nan and Zhang Yining won the gold medal in women's doubles table tennis, beating Lee Eun-sil and Suk Eun-mi of South Korea 11-9, 11-7, 11-6, 11-6. Guo Yue and Niu Jianfeng of China won the bronze.
TRAMPOLINE
Anna Dogonadze of Germany won the gold medal in women's trampoline, scoring 39.60 points from a possible 40 to edge Karen Cockburn of Canada. Huang Shanshan of China took bronze with 39.00.
WOMEN'S WATER POLO
Australia and the United States, the gold and silver medalists at the Sydney 2000 Olympics, advanced to the women's water polo semifinals after finishing atop their brackets.
The world champion Americans, coming off an upset loss to Canada, got two goals and two assists from Brenda Villa in a match that determined the No. 1 position in Group B. The Russians placed second and the Hungarians beat Canada for third place.
Naomi Castle and Kate Gynther scored three goals apiece, and Australia rallied from down 7-4.