BEIJING - The preview sheet passed out by the Olympic News Service at the men's volleyball venue predicted the Americans would have no problem defeating Serbia in Wednesday night's semifinals.

The author obviously didn't know the history between the teams.

The United States did advance to Friday's Olympic semifinals against Russia, but the 3-2 (20-25, 25-23, 21-25, 25-18, 15-12) victory didn't come easily. The Americans had to battle back from a 2-1 deficit to advance. With a victory against Russia they would assure themselves of their first Olympic medal since winning a bronze in 1992.

The Americans and Serbs were quite familiar with one another, as Serbia beat them in a World League preliminary match earlier this year before the U.S. prevailed in a gold-medal rematch.

Things looked dire for the Americans Wednesday night at the Capital Gymnasium after they fell behind 7-4 in the final set, but they regrouped after coach Hugh McClutcheon called a timeout.

"They were pretty emotional at that point, and I was just trying to get them to settle down a bit," he said. "They were getting a little too out of control. There was not need to panic. We still had plenty of time."

They wound up scoring the next three points to tie the match, then took the lead for good on a spike by Clayton Stanley. The Kaiser High School graduate and former University of Hawaii star also had some big blocks down the stretch as the U.S. improved to 6-0.

"I think it was a testament to Clay that he was still able to come up big down the stretch despite an off night offensively," said Lloy Ball of Woodburn, Ind. We had a lot of guys who came through when they had to."

In their quarterfinal match, Russia came back from a set down to beat Bulgaria, 3-1 (20-25, 25-16, 25-22, 25-21).