Prep Volleyball

All coaches stats in volleyball are complete fucking bullshit -- except for service points, which are actually kept at the scorer's table.

There ain't two volleyball coaches in the goddamn world who keep the same stats. Some keep kills, blocks and assists, somebody else keeps 'attack percentage,' 'digs,' 'tip efficiency,' 'pushes,' 'spikes,' 'saves,' yadda yadda blah blah.

It would be like if one basketball coach kept "points, rebounds and assists," and somebody else kept "swishies, bankers, rim-rollers, helpies and in-your-faces."

When we cover matches or take them on the phone, we don't even ask questions or argue. We take whatever they got, regardless of how tenuously connected to whatever happened on the court.

Say the team lost 25-14, 25-17 and 15-11, and they tell us "Susie Spikealot had 26 kills and 64 service points." Fine. What-fucking-ever.

(Although the above report would be highly unlikely since 70% of all volleyball coaches invariably report all matches with their score first, regardless whether they won or lost, so they would have started with, "we played Flatball Tech and it was 14-25, 17-25 and 11-15," leaving it for us to figure out who won or lost.)

 

A block is a block when the blocker blocks the ball back over the net. It dies not have to end the play.

 

No staring at the players' butts.

 

Keep track of service points.

 

It's bullshit of course, but it is in fact the only actually verifiable official statistic.


(It's also not quite complete bullshit: although serving is less important as a weapon as it used to be, players who pile up a lot of service points are doing something right.)

 

Not in Ohio. Area coaches used to send these in with other stats and we'd run them, but that ended when Ohio switched to rally scoring.
When rally scoring came in, I called the Ohio High School Athletic Association about something (I can't even rememer what now), then as an afterthought inquired what the ruling was now for individual points in a game – do they remain with the server for service points or go to the player who gets the kill?
After a few seconds of silence, the state official asked me what I was asking her about.
“Service points,” I replied. “You know, the points awarded to the player when her team scores and she's the server.”
“There's no such stat,” she said.
“Really?” I said. “Coaches in our area have been turning them in to us for years.”
“No,” said the head official for the sport, “there is no such stat.”
“Thanks for clearing that up,” I said.
We still get them turned in a by a few coaches; they never make the paper.

 

Our paper runs kills, aces and assists. You can have a good offense but it means jack squat if there isn't a dedicated setter that helps run it.

I echo a previous post as well. Volleyball is an exciting sport to watch at the postseason level, especially when you get past regionals into quarters, semis and finals.

 

I was once told the only reason service points were actually kept was to ensure teams weren't serving out of order.

 

Every sport seems to have one stat that I just can't keep up with. In volleyball, it's digs.

The very least, keep the kills and blocks. Service aces are easy.

One word of caution: Some (more inexperienced, especially) coaches give you stats that say little Mary Jones had 40 kills and 15 blocks.

What the coach is counting is every time little Mary hit a kill, whether it was dug up or not, and every time she got her little hands on the ball while trying to block, whether it was still played or not.

A kill is recorded when an attack ends with a point. Same thing for a block (sometimes referred to as a stuff-block) -- a block ends the volley. If the ball is still bouncing around, nobody gets anything.

If you're quick, and if you have a good scoresheet, you can record kills, blocks, aces and serve comp-att. I also have space for play-by-play, so I can note game-changing volleys.

 

Like Rhody said earlier, a block does not have end a volley. You can block an attack and it gets dug up for another volley.


Where people get blocks wrong is if a player breaks their wrists on a successful block attempt, it actually becomes an attack.

 

My two best friends played in high school, so I was the defacto line judge and I still get confused someti2es.
This is how my sheet looks if Team A is playing team B and Team A is serving on my left and Team B on my right.
0-0
A12 B24 block 0-1
B4 A14 kill 1-1
A8 A 6 dink/tip 2-1
A8 B 16 out 3-1
A8 short 3-2
B16 A6 carry 3-3

.....and so forth.

That being said, when it comes to digs I have no idea and my stats are so off from the coach's that I just get theirs anyway. But I guess the play-by-play is important for my gamer. :

 

Every volleyball coach in history has been convinced that communication is the only thing that matters. What do you need to work on? Communication. What did you do right? Communication. What's the key to the next match? Communication.

If you are trying to shoot your own photos, don't go crazy trying to get net shots. They are great if they work, but unless you are a skilled photographer (and not just a reporter stuck shooting his own stuff), you will have trouble getting a good one. Dig shots are easy, it's good to get a few in right away so you have something usable, then try to stand behind or beside the team you are shooting and wait for some girl to go flailing onto the floor in your direction for a good "she's coming right at you" shot. You will need one of the highest shutter speeds of any high-school sport if you want to freeze the ball in those spots.

Watch for each team's style of play. Some teams will really attack the net and go for big booming kills. Others will put four back and try to play more defensively. At lower levels of high school VB, the team that makes the fewest mistakes will probably win.

Watch the setter. The effectiveness of the big hitters is almost entirely on her. She should be getting the ball right into the hitters' wheelhouse, preferably with low, quick sets that don't give the defense time to set up.

No matter how hard you try, most of your game stories will devolve into "One team went on a run to break open the game and win."

If you are new to the preps grind or may be covering a lot of sports you aren't familiar with, Joe Gisondi's Field Guide to Covering Sports is a great practical manual that gives you these kinds of instructions sport-by-sport.