"I am very happy, obviously," said Team USA coach Doug Beal. "What we have to do now is maintain our level of play. We have played well. We've had chances in the matches that we lost to get into the fifth set and we haven't done it. We certainly can elevate our play a little bit and we want to try to make that happen."

Team USA (2-2) plays Brazil tomorrow in its final pool-play match. Quarterfinals start Wednesday.

"It doesn't matter how you get there (quarterfinals) as long as you go across, especially after the last Olympics," said outside hitter Kevin Barnett, who played on the winless American team at the 2000 Olympic Games. "I don't think people expect us to do well here, as far as the volleyball public. But we played Italy very tough; we played Russia very tough. I don't think Russia could have played any better. I like our chances against anybody in the other pool for sure."

Before Italy swept the Netherlands, though, the United States had to take care of Australia.

In perhaps his best match of the tournament, Millar had 13 kills, three blocks and an ace. Millar missed the team's Pre-Olympic Tournament and did not get to Athens until Aug. 10 because of an ankle injury.

"I don't think anybody knows how hurt he is ... I don't know," Beal said. "He tells me he's fine. I am sure he's not 100 percent, and I'm sure it hurts him. But he has been practicing, he's been playing and he's getting better for sure, which is good for us."

Priddy scored in double figures for the third match in a row, with 12 kills, two blocks and one ace. Stanley, the Americans' leading scorer, had 12 points.

"I thought the guys played great," said Beal, who will be making his first Olympic quarterfinal appearance since guiding the team to the gold medal at the 1984 Summer Games. "We have been doing some things in this tournament better than we have before, and that's what you want to do. You want to step up at the most important times.

"We served really well today, and we passed much better today than we did against Russia. We got our block in a nice spot and we controlled the match except for the beginning of the second set. We got ourselves in a hole, down 8-2."

After winning the first game easily and then dropping a close second, the Americans took control in the third when they jumped to an 8-2 lead of their own. They led by as many as 10 points (20-10). Stanley, a Kaiser High and University of Hawai'i alum, scored two of the final five points.

The United States fell behind early in the fourth, but eventually constructed a 20-12 lead.

"Before the Olympics a lot of reporters were asking me what I thought about our team and our chances, and I always said I thought our team was going to be a little sneaky," Millar said. "We're good, but other teams are going to overlook us a bit. I think we've gotten to that point ... where in the quarters we could be overlooked a little bit and sneak up on some teams."