Italy sweeps USA women, who take home Paris Olympics volleyball silver

PARIS — First, let’s get the match out of the way. 

Italy steamrolled the USA and the 25-18, 25-20, 25-17 scoreline doesn’t tell all of the story, like Paola Egonu’s 18 kills or an 11-0 — really, 11-0 — blocks advantage or that the USA scored three points in a row just once in the entire match, in the middle of the first set.

What’s more, Italy, which lost just one set in six matches, took home the Paris Olympics gold medal for women’s volleyball with a simply dominating performance.

But the USA didn’t lose the gold medal. It won silver, and looking at it any other way just wouldn’t be right or fair to a team that persevered and peaked at the right time.

“It just tough. We have so much that we’re proud of from this tournament but out of the three medalist teams it’s the only one that finishes the tournament with a loss,” USA coach Karch Kiraly said. “So there’s a bittersweet part to that.”

It still marked the fifth medal in as many Olympics for the USA, after winning silver in 2008 in Beijing, silver in 2012 in London, bronze in 2016 in Rio and gold in 2021 in Tokyo.

“Any time you can leave the Olympics with a medal, regardless of the color, it’s good for America and this program,” setter Jordyn Poulter said. “You know, I think we have an expectation in the United States that you should win gold and it should be easy. But it’s not an easy feat to medal at the Olympics and I’m really proud of how our team was able to show up for a really difficult pool and move through and into the knockouts and played on the final day of the Olympics.”

Which, it should be noted, ended before 3 p.m. local time, but with media obligations and family time, there was going to be a short window until heading out.

That’s because the USA players have a 4:30 a.m. bus Monday to the airport to fly to New York, where Tuesday they’re going to be on the Today Show, be part of an event at the Empire State Building and more. And, it should be noted, thank goodness, because the gold-medal victory in Tokyo had no such fanfare.

But coach Kiraly and his staff — which includes NCAA coaches Alfee Reft (UCLA) and Erin Virtue (Michigan), who have to get to work on their respective campuses — have a different agenda Monday. 

“I get to be on the ‘flag flight,’ which is passing the Olympic flag from Paris. It’s getting flown to Los Angeles,” Kiraly said. “Some of us getting to…