ATHENS, Greece - The tennis team melted down, the swimming team hasn’t been its usual dominant self, the men’s basketball team is an embarrassment, reduced to taking six-point wins over Greece and declaring them great victories.

And the U.S. women’s softball team just keeps rolling along. The shut-outs keep coming. And this squad is just now starting to really get noticed, building a record that could see it leave Athens as the most dominant American Olympic team in any sport since the original basketball Dream Team of 1992.

And now, after a convincing 5-0 win over nemesis Australia in the semifinals on Sunday, it looks like no one's going to stop this group. The U.S. is now 8-0 in Athens and has outscored its opponents 46-0. The U.S. women have also won 78 consecutive games.

Facing Canada earlier in the tournament, Team USA's shutout streak got some help from a bad umpire’s call on a play at the plate that would have given the Canadians a run. But that’s part of the game, and the record books don’t recognize bad calls, only final scores.

But because of that call, it is very possible — maybe probable — that this team could win a gold medal without giving up a run. I don’t know where that ranks on the degree-of-difficulty scale, but I do know that a lot of countries have been working very hard at women’s softball since before it became an Olympic sport in 1996, and the gap between them and the Americans is greater now than it was eight years ago.

There is, in fact, no American team more dominant than these 15 women who comprise what has to be the best softball team ever assembled. They have the sport’s best-ever player in pitcher-third baseman Lisa Fernandez. Each of their four pitchers would be the best at her position on any team in the world she cared to join.

Their lead-off hitter, Natasha Watley, comes out of the box like Ichiro Suzuki with rocket boosters, getting to first base in 2.5 seconds and turning routine ground balls into base hits. Following her is Leah Amico, so automatic with sacrifice bunts that you could save time by starting the first inning by putting Watley on second with one out and inviting the team’s No. 3 hitter, bomber Crystl Bustos, to take her licks.

Not that this outfit needs to save time. Their defensive innings rarely take more than five minutes to complete.

They hit, hit with power, play defense, run like the wind, and rifle the ball around the diamond.

And, they insist, after seven shutouts and a trip to the Olympic semifinals, they have yet to reach their potential.

"We have to continue to get better at this game and be the aggressor," said their coach, Mike Candrea. "When you are ‘on’ offensively, you have to stay on and keep things up because it is just as easy to have a bad outing. We take everything game-by-game because each day is a new situation."

Simply dominating U.S.A. softball has been impressive in going 7-0 USA Category Opp. 0.346 Batting average 0.080 5.9 Runs per game 0.0 56 Total hits 11 0.00 ERA 6.38 52 Pitching strikeouts 17

"We haven't put the whole process together," agreed Bustos.

These pronouncements were delivered with all seriousness. Bustos' was offered before Wednesday’s win against Canada, a team that was coming off the other softball power in this tournament, Japan. Candrea’s came after.

Both statement dovetail with the motto that has driven Fernandez’s career through five straight world championship trophies and her third Olympics: "Never be satisfied."

Gee, what would happen to this world if that ever caught on? Forget the world, if the members of the U.S. men’s basketball team had thought of that back when they were in high school, they wouldn’t be in the fix they are today.

But that’s just one reason why this team of women who don’t get nearly the publicity and the credit their greatness deserves is so special. There isn’t enough room in anything shorter than a book to give all the reasons, but another is the unique bond they have with their coach, Candrea, who came to Athens with his team despite losing his 48-year-old wife to a sudden brain aneurysm in July, shortly before the team was to leave for the Games.

FREE VIDEO U.S. women's softball hungry for gold Aug. 17: Members of the U.S. Olympic softball team talk about their challenges and triumphs as they pursue the gold with "Today" host Matt Lauer. Today Show Olympics

Candrea decided to carry on, because he still had a job to do. The team went to the funeral, cried with him, understood what he needed to do. And never once have any of them begun — or ended — an interview by claiming Candrea’s loss as motivation.

There’s a level of maturity in that and respect for a very private and devastating event. There is also a bond that few teams have. But they’re not playing for one person, and they don’t need extra motivation. They’re playing to win a championship and working to be the best team ever. And because of Fernandez and their own standards, they may be as happy as any team can be when they win, but they will never be satisfied.

They also will never be full of themselves. Take Finch — and most guys would gladly obey that order in a hummingbird’s heartbeat.

There should be a law against her. No one should be so talented, gorgeous, and nice, all at the same time. She was the only female athlete named to People magazine’s 2004 edition of the nation’s 50 most beautiful people.

If you had no idea who she was and walked up to the plate, you’d think someone was playing a practical joke on you, because the first thing you’d see is a tall blonde who’s too pretty to possibly be any good. In the world of stereotypes, women like her would be too concerned about breaking a nail to play softball at the highest levels. But then she’d go into her windmill and the ball would be past you so fast you wouldn’t even be sure she threw it.

Major league baseball players have tried to hit against Finch and failed. She brings it at speeds approaching 70 mph from a pitching rubber just 43 feet away. By the time she leaps off the rubber, plants her lead foot, and releases the ball, she’s fewer than 40 feet away.

We’ve seen enough good-looking great athletes to know that it’s nearly impossible to be that attractive and that good without also being an arrogant jerk. And yet Finch is humble, genuinely religious, and seems utterly unfazed by the sensation she creates wherever she goes.

That sensation is about to grow. The U.S. has wrapped up preliminary play and will no play in the semifinals late Saturday.

It is always possible a great pitcher can stop them, but they’ve already faced that situation earlier in the Olympics in a game against Japan. They were no-hit for seven innings, but gave up only one hit themselves. In the top of the eighth — the first extra inning — they didn’t just eke out a run, they plated three, ripping all hope out of the hearts of their opponents.

And then they talked about getting better.

You may not yet really know them. But you will. They’re the best America has, among the best America — or any country — has ever had.

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