Five USA teams — four women’s — get through Ostrava Elite16 pool play

If you listened closely enough, even across Europe and the Atlantic Ocean and the entire continental United States, you could hear the maybe awful or, depending on your view of the matter, maybe relieving sounds of squeaking. It wasn’t the squeaking of the retired steel mill under which the Ostrava Elite16 is played, but the slimmest of margins by which Julia Scoles and Betsi Flint, and Taryn Kloth and Kristen Nuss broke pool.

Coming into Friday’s final round of pool play in the Volleyball World tournament in the Czech Republic, both teams required two things: A win — at least one, in the case of Flint and Scoles — and a little bit of help. Both teams got their wish.

Flint and Scoles, after dropping their opening match to Australia’s Taliqua Clancy and Mariafe Artacho, won their morning match over Brazil’s Barbara and Carol (21-13, 21-19). It made the afternoon a relatively simple equation: Beat Kelly Cheng and Sara Hughes and make the playoffs … or lose and hope that Australia would beat Brazil … or, in the most complicated scenario, lose and hope that Brazil, should they beat Australia, would beat them by a slim enough margin that Flint and Scoles would advance to the playoffs on points.

Because this is an Elite16, where nothing comes easy, it proved to be the final option. Flint and Scoles were thumped by Cheng and Hughes (21-13, 21-11), but Barbara and Carol only beat Australia by a total of four points. That would prove to be the difference, as Flint and Scoles moved on from pool play for the first time in an Elite16 this season, and will meet top-seeded Duda and Ana Patricia in the first round of the playoffs.

Think that was close? Try Nuss’ and Kloth’s white-knuckler of a day. They dropped both of their matches on Thursday, to Brazil’s Duda and Ana Patricia and Americans Sarah Sponcil and Terese Cannon. It put them in a win-and-maybe in scenario in their mid-morning match with Latvia’s Tina Graudina and Anastasija Samoilova, who went 1-1 on the first day. A win would, again, come down to points. And win they would, 23-21, 21-9, creating a margin wide enough to push Latvia out of the tournament and Nuss and Kloth into the playoffs.

“Crazy,” Nuss said.

Indeed, point differential breakdown was favorable for the American women. It was not so with the men. Trevor Crabb and Theo Brunner finished 1-2 in pool, with losses to France’s Youssef Krou and Arnaud Gauthier, and Norway’s Anders Mol and…