U.S. Men's Volleyball Team wins one for their coach.

Playing with a heavy heart and without their head coach, The U.S. Men's Volleyball Team took the court Sunday morning to face off against Venezuela. Head Coach, Hugh McCutcheon was with his family after learning that his in-laws had been brutally attacked while visiting tourist sites in China. His father-in-law, Todd Bachman, was killed in the attack. His mother-in-law, Barbara Bachman was also seriously wounded in the attack and is in the hospital in critical condition. She underwent 8 hours of life saving surgery after being rushed to the hospital. McCutcheon's wife, Elisabeth was with her parents at the time of the attack but wasn't injured.

The last time Team USA saw their coach was as they watched him race from their practice session on Saturday afternoon. They found out about the attack hours later and have only spoken to Coach McCutcheon by phone since. It was an unsettling start for a team that came into the Games ranked 3rd in the FIVB World rankings and is considered a strong medal contender. They looked it in the first 2 games of the match as they raced out to take the first 2 games by identical scores of 25-18. Venezuela mixed it up in game 3, going to it's bench to find a rotation of players that might be able to get something going in their favor. This move seemed to give them new life as they stole game 3, 25-22 and rolled to take game 4 by a score of 25-21. That sent the match to a tiebreaker game 5. The U.S. stormed back to take game 5, 15-10 and win the match.

After the match, the players, to a man, said their poor performance in games 3 and 4 was due to relaxing after their early lead and was unrelated to the tragedy that had befallen the family of their head coach. Regardless of the cause, they have a difficult road ahead of them as they look now to their next match against Italy. It is unknown if McCutcheon will be there for that match, or any match from here on out.