Before retiring a few years ago, I covered high school sports for THE REPORTER, a newspaper in Vacaville, California. Before that job, I had never covered a high school volleyball match. I had much to learn.
As I watch the four local girls’ teams — Vacaville High, Will C. Wood, Vacaville Christian, and Vanden — I am learning a lot. I was way behind the times.
You can score a point when you are not serving? I discovered that in the old system known as side-out scoring, only the team serving could score a point. In the current system, rally scoring allows points to be scored by either the serving or the receiving team. The change was made in 1999 to make the matches more predictable in length and more spectator-friendly.
I was watching a local high school match, and the serve hit the net but landed on the receiving team’s side. “Do over,” I thought, otherwise known as a “let.” What, they’re still playing the rally? I found out that in 2001, the rule was changed so that a serve that hits the net but still makes it to the other side is playable.
Why is that one girl wearing a shirt that is an entirely different color from the rest of the team? She’s a libero? A what?
I learned that libero is the Italian word for “free,” and the position is similar to the free safety in football —a defensive specialist not limited by the regular rules of rotation and who stays in the game at all times. But the libero never rotates to the front row.
Why are those three girls standing in a row, stacked up, before the serve? Oh, they are getting ready to switch locations as soon as the ball is served? I don’t remember doing that in gym class.
Vacaville High’s Sam Wasielewski (middle) spikes the ball between the defense of Vanden’s Emily Casner (left) and Sammie Carelock during the fourth set of the Bulldogs’ 20-25, 30-28, 25-17, 25-21 victory over the Vikings. (photo courtesy of Joel Rosenbaum — The Vacaville Reporter)
When Vacaville High head volleyball coach Jordyn Adcock started explaining about her team’s 5-1 formation versus the 6-2, I stood there nodding my head like I knew what she was talking about. Later, I asked her and learned more.
Wood High coach Michaela O’Brien was talking about her team’s serve-receive passing game. That just sounded to me like a bunch of verbs strung together. Now I understand that “serve-receive” is one concept, passing is another, all designed to set up the hitter for the best possible shot.
There is a whole lot I still don’t understand about this game.
But one doesn’t have to understand it all to enjoy it. It is fast-paced, action-packed, edge-of-your-seat, elevated by the enthusiasm of the players and the frenetic cheering of the crowd.
Unlike high school badminton, where there are usually simultaneous matches so the audience has to remain quiet and applause is polite, volleyball fans are LOUD.
I learned something else after watching the first league match this season between Vacaville and Vanden. (The highlight was an incredible second set, which Vacaville eventually won, 30-28.)
After the Bulldog win, I was in a quandary. Which player should I interview? It’s easy in baseball — grab the winning pitcher or the guy who smacked the game-winning homer. Even in basketball, it’s not too hard — speak with the girl who scored 30 points and hit seven 3-pointers.
But volleyball presented a problem. They were all great on both teams. Okay, so I’ll go with the winning team. But then what? Sure, that tall girl had a lot of kills and blocks. But that setter made it possible. And that libero got the balls to the setter. And that other girl was diving headlong for all those digs.
Coach Adcock helped me understand. When I mentioned that the two girls I interviewed seemed to be the key to the match, she politely told me that they are in their roles for a reason. But so are all of her other players. That’s when I finally got it: Volleyball is the ultimate team sport.
The experts agree. Cynthia Barboza, an outside hitter who played for Stanford for four years and led the U.S. national team that won the bronze medal at the 2011 Pan American Games, told Reuters, “You only get one contact before you have to give the ball off to a teammate. … It’s the synergy of the group that eventually wins the match, not just the all-stars you have lined up there.”
Christa Harmotto, U.S. 2012 Olympian and silver medalist: You have to know your teammates. It is six people and one ball, so you have to know what balls they are going for or how to push them.
The proximity of the six players in that little box makes them dependent on each other. You can see it in the camaraderie and teamwork that develop during a match and over the course of a season.
Sure, basketball is also a team sport. But sometimes it’s better to clear everybody out and give the ball to Michael Jordan.
That’s not an option in volleyball – the very definition of a team sport.
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This article first appeared in The Vacaville Reporter on September 23, 2019.
