Kemner Has Off Night, So Does U.S. : Women’s volleyball: Without their star in top form, Americans unable to get past Cuba in semifinals.

Caren Kemner was there in the beginning, in 1985, when United States women’s volleyball Coach Terry Liskevych inherited an Olympic silver medalist in name only, when Liskevych had “no players, no videotapes, no files, nothing.”

Kemner was there when Liskevych’s first national team failed to qualify for the World Cup tournament . . . and when his 1986 team limped to 10th place in the World Championships . . . and when the 1988 team finished seventh in an eight-team Olympic field in Seoul . . . and when the program finally turned upscale in 1991, following the trail of Kemner’s kill shots to the Olympic semifinals.

Thursday night, the U.S. women played Cuba for the right to advance to the gold-medal match.

So where was Kemner?

Liskevych raised the question himself, repeatedly, in his analysis of a wildly uneven 8-15, 15-9, 6-15, 15-5, 15-11 United States defeat at Palau Sant Jordi.

“Caren Kemner did not have a very good match--for Caren Kemner,” Liskevych volunteered for the assembled media. “We were in trouble because Caren never got in a groove. I don’t think she hit for high percentage (of kills), she didn’t pass well and she didn’t play defense.

“She had an off night tonight and it’s hard to say why.”

These were harsh words, but no harsher than Liskevych’s attempt at postmatch comfort in the U.S. locker room.

“I told her it was a tough match,” Liskevych said. “I told her, ‘We counted on you . . . Don’t worry about it.’ ”

Understanding, obviously, is not Liskevych’s forte as a coach, even if he did try to soften the sentiment in the interview room, allowing that Kemner “has played well in the clutch before. I probably could’ve done a better coaching job too. Everybody could’ve done a better job tonight.”

Kemner is the quarterback on this U.S. volleyball team, its cleanup hitter. The Americans’ most valuable player in five of the last six years--Kemner did not play in 1989--she expanded her reputation in 1991, being named world MVP by the International Volleyball Federation.

So when the Americans began hyperventilating amid the pressure of the fourth and fifth games, they kept looking to Kemner for the key block, the key spike. They kept right on looking.

“Everybody had the confidence to keep going to me, and I just let the team down,” Kemner said, her eyes reddened. “I don’t know what it was. I just kept trying to get it done and I thought it would come, but for some reason it wasn’t there.

“I know everybody looks to me in these situations. That makes it tough.”

Kemner converted only 17% of her kill attempts, the lowest percentage of any American starter. By comparison, Lori Endicott, the team’s 5-foot-9 setter, converted 31%.

“After the second game,” Cuba captain Mireya Luis said, “Caren kept trying to block and got tired. After that, I thought she lost a little bit of confidence in her shots.”

Kemner disagreed, at least on the specifics.

“If I lost confidence, I think I would have shanked a lot more of my kills and I would have stopped talking out there,” she said. “I don’t think that was the case at all. It was a case of where I just couldn’t get it going.”

The United States’ collapse was startling, but it hardly began and ended with one woman. After winning the third game, 15-6, the Americans fell behind, 11-2, in the fourth and 13-9 in the fifth--and the breakdown was courtwide. Sets began sailing over the net, arms that once formed a resilient blocking wall began to waver under the constant pounding of Luis and Magaly Carvajal, the Cubans’ 6-4 middle blocker.

Luis, a 12-year veteran of the Cuban national team, and Carvajal combined for 31 kills, including Carvajal’s match winner--a powerful blast through the block of Teee Sanders and JanetCobbs.

Cuba (5-0) will meet the Commonwealth of Independent States (4-1) for the gold medal tonight. The CIS defeated Brazil in the other semifinal, 15-10, 13-15, 15-5, 15-5.

Meanwhile, the United States (3-2) must content itself with the bronze-medal match against Brazil.

“It’s going to be a hard match to play, because we’re disappointed,” Liskevych said. “But I think our team realizes it’s for a medal in the biggest event in volleyball.”

In fact, the bronze would be only the second medal for the United States in seven women’s Olympic volleyball tournaments.

“Our team has worked very hard to get to this point after starting from scratch in 1985,” Liskevych said. “We had a great team from 1979 to 1984 and then after the silver medal, everybody retired. I started out as coach in 1985 with no players. I had to hold open tryouts.

“But the last 2 1/2 years, we’ve been in the top four in every major competition. We were third in the World Championships. We were fourth in the World Cup under extreme pressure.”

And in Barcelona, they still could finish third.

Regardless of what did or didn’t happen Thursday night, without Kemner, they wouldn’t have been anywhere close.