| Calling Service Zones | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| An Often Overlooked Valuable Offensive Weapon. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Lake Norman (NC) VB Club Every coach has had the experience of noticing a reception weakness of the opposition - perhaps a huge hole is left uncovered, or the receivers are plastered at the back line, or one of them is sobbing uncontrollably because she just broke up with her boyfriend. At that moment you would love to signal to your server to aim for that zone, but alas, if you did so, she would look back at you with that deer in the headlight look. Even though she consistently serves 90%, on that occasion her fingers graze the ball and it falls short of your own attack line. SO much for calling serves. However, all coaches worth their
salt know that serve calling is a powerful offensive weapon.
A purposely directed serve to a particular zone is so much more effective
than a thoughtless swing toward the net. Yet, so many serves from
our younger players seem to be just this.
Hurdle # 1: Learning the basic biomechanics of the serve and getting into the same routine on every serve. <more information>I think coaches often underestimate the abilities of our players in this area of serve placement. There is no good reason why a player who can consistently place the ball over the net cannot also learn to place serves into the various zones, if the coach persists that they do so. When they see the advantages of placing serves, especially when the number of aces rise, they will get excited about the prospect and will quickly come to trust your judgment from the bench. Just watch what happens the first time your most hesitant server drops an ace into the #2 zone right behind a penetrating setter. That will be the pay off for your coaching patience! Give it a try, and let me know how you can improve on it (sostout@juno.com). |
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