5 Dig-to-Transition Examples

Sandy Sunday #3

This spring I’m doing 3 different running article series.

On Tuesday, I’m releasing articles aimed at giving you a small, specific tool to make your in-practice or in-match coaching more effective. On Fridays, I’m writing about ways to increase the physical capability of players. On Sundays, I’m releasing a more statistically-oriented beach article.

(Additional note: this one is gif-heavy so it might play better on your browser than inside your email.)

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In this spring’s first Sandy Sunday post, I talked about Transition Win %:

KPI #5: 2 Kinds Of Transition Win %

If you’re a SmarterVolley reader, you’re familiar with Transition as one point of the Triangle.

In this case, I sometimes find it valuable to separate your Transition Win % based on whether you served or received. They really are almost 2 different kinds of transition rally, especially as you get to a higher level.

Winning the Transition game when you serve is often based off your dig quality. This is what we tend to think of in terms of winning Transition.

However, winning the Transition game when you receive is sometimes based off your ability to make good zeroes. That is, when you don’t have your ideal set to kill, do you just give the ball away? Or can you hit a good shot that puts the opponent in trouble and makes your next defensive play a little easier?

There’s been a couple pairs at LMU over the past few years where this became a major focus for them leading into Gulf Shores, and showing them the difference in Transition Win % between serve and receive was important to helping them understand.

I’ve been somehow fortunate enough to get to chat volley regularly consulting with my friend John Mayer and the LMU Beach Volleyball program for about 5 years now. A couple weekends ago, they played in the Kahanamoku Kickoff Classic hosted by Hawaii. With several of the top teams in the country present, there were sure to be lots of good play to study.

So let’s look at 5 examples of Dig-to-Transition. My goal here is to show some common archetypes of transition kills. I don’t have a formal study to show what the most common types of transition kills are yet, but I have a hunch these might be 5 of the more common types.

Example 1: Get to middle, shoot back to the line

This is a common shot… and for a good reason. When you can get to the center as a right-hander, you now have a lot of room back toward the line to shoot. Teams will know this is a common shot, but it doesn’t make it easy to defend.

The detail here is to be able to dig a fairly hard-driven ball and then get into your transition. And set a ball that’s coming off the arms with plenty of energy and keep it on the net in the center of the court.

(And from a defensive perspective, you need to have a plan to handle this situation.)

Example 2: Cover your block into the On-2

Again, this is a fairly common situation, but it’s common because it works and good teams are good at it. I’ve shown a similar play on a previous 5-Play Friday example thread. On the men’s side.

The blocker needs to know that the cover is part of the block in this situation. Don’t just play the ball, play it with intent. A nice touch by the blocker puts the defender in position to attack. And the defender needs to know that, as soon as a ball touches her partner’s block, that this is the ideal situation. It won’t always look as smooth as this, but she needs to prep that the play will get executed like this. If you prep for it, you’ll terminate this play at a high level. If you wait to see the quality of the touch, you’re going to be late and rushed. Prep for the perfect touch and you can always roll or even freeball out of it if it’s not there.