Prep Volleyball

No matter how many matches I cover, a team will eventually "drop" a ball. As in, all six girls will watch in until the last second when three or four run after it. Never fails.

Communication.

 

Keep talking, girls! Keep talking!

 

A lot of the advice here is spot on and I've learned a couple of new things. One thing for sure: the number of blocks I record in a match will drop significantly next season. I'd bought in that a block was recorded whether the ball hit the floor or not.

And speaking of blocks, I have a prep coach who has "solo blocks" and "assist blocks." I think she's trying to distinguish between when one player gets a block and when there are two people in the area. Maybe they do both touch the ball, I don't know since I'm not at her matches, but I'm certain you can't give a "half block" so to speak. Either one person got it or the other but not both. She also goes pretty far overboard with her stats. She has serve percentages and attack percentages. I'm sure no one reading would know what those mean, so I don't include them. She's also still clinging to the idea that "service points" mean something.

And she's one of those "communcation" groupies. If things went well, awesome communication. If things went bad, terrible communication. I wonder if a team has ever had poor communication but skills so awesome they can overcome it? Because I have seen teams that communicate really well get beaten 25-7, 25-5, 25-10.

(BTW, bad junior college volleyball can be just as awful, perhaps worse, than bad high school volleyball)

 

If you can have half a sack in football, why not half a block in volleyball?

 

That's cuz I'm a fucking genius and the best at what I do.
Sorry, I'm drunk right now - like good friend's 30th birthday party drunk. Like wife promised to go to the weiner joint and didn't so now I'm drunk hungry drunk.

 

There are block solos and blocks assists in the official NCAA state manual. If both players jump, but only one player blocks, both players still get credit for the block assist.

 

Word for word. And...

Exactly. If a player has more than three blocks in a match - and one additional if it goes to a fourth or fifth game - you're dealing with a pretty good player or a dumb coach. You be the judge.

 

Yes, you can have a block assist. The sack analogy was a great one.

 

As others already said, you definitely can have solo blocks and block assists. I would never try to get that complicated with high school ball, though.

Service percentages and attack percentages are definitely legit, too, but also probably more than you want to deal with at that level.

I do know some coaches actually believe in using service points because some servers give their teams a much better chance of winning points. It is just a very flawed statistic, kind of like using errors alone to determine defensive excellence in baseball, because there are other factors at play such as serving when your team is in a strong rotation or when the opponent is in a weak one.

 

Avoid statistics.

Record key moments, and write stories that indicate that you were there and paying attention, not stories that display your ability to count your own stats or regurgitate stat sheets the coach gives you.

Save the stats for the roundups and the all-area teams, though kill averages are less impressive than a notation that a player signed with a major college.

 

Sprinkling some stats in can help a story. But yea, I wouldn't devote a paragraph to them.


Write it more like this:

"That was a big momentum shift," said Susie Spiker, who had 10 kills and four blocks.

 

Three SJ pages dissecting stats. Think the readers understand all this? No way.
Stick to the basics: kills, blocks, maybe digs if a player has a bunch, maybe aces if a player has several.
Because most of the stats are relative. A player with 10 kills in a 3-0 victory probably had a better match than a player with 15 kills in a 3-2 win or loss.
And, as previously stated, forget assists. It's like counting handoffs for a QB.