With Lindsey Berg

Punahou graduate Lindsey Berg is one of four players with Hawai'i ties on the U.S. women's volleyball team. Her father, Dennis, is contributing to The Advertiser's coverage from Beijing.

BEIJING, Aug. 20 — It was "Midnight at the Oasis" at Beijing's Capital Gymnasium with Jr. Walker and the (American VB) All-Stars singing "How Sweet It Is."

The USA women had just completed an incredibly impressive comeback, beating Italy, the No. 2 ranked team in the world, in five games (20-25, 25-21, 19-25, 25-18, 15-6).

After struggling to earn back-to-back comeback wins against China and Poland, this time the women did it in style, pounding the Italians with convincing wins in Games 4 and 5.

This had the look of a Muhammad Ali fight, with Lindsey (Berg) maneuvering the team off the ropes to win the battle in the final rounds.

I understand the TV commentators called out "Lindsey for President."

If so, Logan (Tom) will be the VP with Danny (Scott-Arruda), Heather (Bown), Robyn (Ah Mow-Santos), Nicole (Davis), Ty (Haneef-Park), Kim (Willoughby) and Kim (Glass) being cabinet members as they all played and competed at a world-class level, resulting in one of their best all-around team performances in years.

It was an extra-special win for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, the USA women advance to the semifinals for the first time in many Olympic moons, with an excellent chance to medal.

The second being that a number of USA players took particular pride in beating a roster of players they compete with and against in the prestigious Italian League during the months of October to May each year.

The semifinal match will be against Cuba, with a roster of players I have described as having superior athleticism.

To clarify how that was previously written, Cuba does not normally play volleyball at its level of athleticism, and therefore the USA has been able to defeat it very often over the past five years.

When we compete evenly with them, they are prone to make many serving and hitting errors, which means USA will have an excellent chance to advance to the finals with another solid performance.

Please note the family Joy Luck Club and old coach Bagg would like to take some credit for the Italy win and plan to provide the same cheering and positive thought strategy at the men's quarterfinal match this evening with Team Stanley supporting Clay and the USA against Serbia.