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US women hold off scrappy Netherlands team in 5 sets

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — This past year in Istanbul, U.S. assistant coach Jamie Morrison worked right alongside a man he considers among the best volleyball minds in the business.

That is fired-up, Italian-born Netherlands coach Giovanni Guidetti, who is suddenly making quite a splash in Brazil with group of tenacious Dutch women determined to spoil the fun for the top teams in the tournament and make a special run of their own in Rio. Even if few might have expected them to contend in playing their first Olympics in 20 years.

So, when the top-ranked Americans held on to defeat the Netherlands in a hard-fought, five-set match, Morrison and the rest of the U.