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Strategies for Serving
Short
-By Dave Cross
Let me ask you a question: What area of your teams game do you spend
the most time on in practice?
I bet the vast majority of you would say "serve receive", at least I hope
so! :)
Nothing derails your chances of winning quicker than a poor job passing serve,
and nothing seems to
"go south" quicker than a teams serve receive after a couple of days away
from the gym.
Coaches: Hardly anyone practices as much during club season as they
do during the school season.
To me, this means that your opponents serve receive will be even more susceptible
to error now than
in the fall.
Add this factor to the fact that most teams don't handle short serves nearly
as well as longer ones,
and you have a recipe for serving success, if it is used strategically.
Here's some ideas that you may want to consider putting
in your game plan:
If your opponent runs slides, x's, 31's or any another attack pattern that
requires the attackers to shift a
decent distance before getting into their approach, you may want to look
at serving short to spots that delay
their movement to where they will attack from.
This is especially true if they are starting out in
any form of a stack or bunch in one area.
I've had a great deal of success with this strategy myself over the years.
Done correctly, this will get them out of rhythm and
significantly decrease the effectiveness of the swings
they will get.
Here's a few key points to implementing this strategy:
1. No matter how much they move around, most teams still have a first
option they are going to go to the vast majority of the time-their "go to"
hitter. This is the one you want to "jam up".
2. Look to serve to make this player move away
from the direction she normally goes to get to her approach.
This throws off the rhythm of the play and many times leads to a much less
effective attack.
3. Or, look to make her move forward, if she
normally is swinging out or in, in either direction. This gets the
player closer to the net before they start their approach and again, throws
off the timing of the attack.
4. If they are stacked or bunched up, look to
serve to where they cross. This causes indecision in who is going
to take the ball, and again, there goes the timing of the attack.
5. Look for spots where you can force an attacker
to make the pass in the path of the setter's transition to
target. The later the setter gets to target, the harder it is for her to
make a precision set.
6. Look for front row players that are not effective
in using their hands to pass-and then serve at their
shoulders. Putting the ball to high for them to use their arms, but not high
enough to extend and get their
hands up high leads to a much less effective pass, and probably a few aces.
Maybe your opponent has quite a few rotations you can attack like this, or
maybe it's just one or two.
We all know that even one bad serve receive formation
that is exploited can cause a world of hurt on the scoreboard!
Caution: If your players are not confident or skilled in serving short,
you may not want to do this. Most of
us have some good short servers, and some we would never try it with.
If you can do it without taking away your own strengths or creating an obvious
weakness, you may want
to look at "bumping" your rotation to match up your best short servers with
your opponents serve receive formations that look to be the most vulnerable
to this strategy. But, please, only do this if you aren't giving
the opponent an obvious advantage somewhere else that they normally wouldn't
have.
Also, if your own team runs this kind of serve receive
attack, make sure they are ready for an opponent
that attempts to use this strategy against them!
Good Luck Coach!
-Dave Cross
National Director
Yes I Can Volleyball
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