Top-ranked U.S. women lose chance for gold in volleyball as they fall to Serbia

The U.S. women’s volleyball team’s quest for its first Olympic gold ended Thursday as the squad lost to Serbia in five sets.

The Americans went down 2-1 before rebounding in the fourth set and briefly regaining control. They were tied in 13-13 in the fifth when a missed serve and a well-placed spike gave Serbia the match (20-25, 25-17, 25-21, 16-25, 15-13).

“That’s probably the best match Serbia ever played, so props to them,” U.S. libero Kayla Banwarth said as tears ran down her face. “We fought really hard and, obviously, it hurts that we couldn’t push a little bit more at the end.”

The win assured Serbia — ranked sixth in the world — of its first Olympic medal in women’s volleyball, prompting a raucous celebration. As the players sobbed and hugged, the Serbian coaches dived on top of each other in arguably the happiest dog pile of these Games.

Waiting at the net to shake hands, the American players wept. Coach Karch Kiraly — the only person to ever win gold in both beach and indoor volleyball — stood silently and watched the Serbians’ joy.

“This loss is deeply disappointing,” Kiraly said. “It’s deeply painful and that’s OK. When you care that much, it’s going to.”

The United States has won silver three times at the Olympics, including second-place finishes in 2012 and 2008. After winning the world championship last year, the team arrived in Rio as the heavy favorite and went undefeated in pool play. Its chances for that elusive gold looked even better after Brazil, its toughest rival, was upset in the quarterfinals by China.

But now the hunt — and the wait — must continue.

“It’s not going to happen this month,” Kiraly said. “I don’t know if it will happen four years from now or 52 years from now. But our job is to make an Olympic gold medal happen at some point.”

The U.S., which beat Serbia in four sets during pool play last week, started the first set strong but ran into trouble in the second set when star middle blocker Foluke Akinradewo went down with a leg injury. She did not return and her status remains unclear for Saturday’s bronze-medal match against China or the Netherlands.

“I think we were a little distracted there for a second just because we care so much for her,” team captain Christa Harmotto Dietzen said.

After Kiraly put his arm around her in a comforting gesture, Dietzen took a deep breath and continued after a few seconds: “Obviously, we wanted to turn this around for her and everybody that’s a part of this program,” she said. “And now we have the next 48 hours to do so.”

Said Kiraly: ‘We get some time to grieve. We signed up to do difficult things for USA and we’re going to come back hard in the next 48 hours.”

sstclair@tribpub.com

Twitter: @stacystclair