5-Play Sunday

Block or not block

Last week on Sandy Sundays I broke down some statistics related to blocking or not blocking on the beach.

This week, we’ll get right into it and look at 5 examples from the NCAA where there were “block or don’t block” decisions and see what we can learn. (As always with this article format, they are gif-heavy so something they play better in your browser than your email client.)

Shotblocking

This is an in-system pass, but a bid of a bad angle + wind puts the setter off-balance, which then puts the hitter in a shooting situation. This is a good situation to shoot from anyway, so the defense either had this play called or correctly read the shot. The defender sprints to the high line, since this is an extremely common shot for a right-handed left-side player to come into the middle and shoot back to that huge space toward her line.

The blocker has a trickier read. The defender is probably shooting, but should she pull or stay and shot-block? It’s not easy to pick up this short short if you pull, but if you don’t swat it as a blocker, it’s going to land easily for a kill. Here the block does a nice job of waiting and hanging (rather than pressing for a hard swing) and is able to swat the short shot.

Semi-System Block Or No Block

We talked last week that some of these situations might come down to scouting. Here’s a situation where you want to know your opponent. Are they going to shoot their way out of trouble or swing their way out of trouble. This is what I’d call a “semi-system” situation. It’s not a bad pass, but it’s not an ideal rhythm either. Most hitters aren’t choosing from the full menu in this situation.

If a hitter likes to shoot, I’d want to clear off the net in a hurry and defend her favorite shot(s). If she likes to hit, then wait and block because that’s her best chance of scoring and trust your defender to clean up a shot that’s probably going to be (as it is here) a bit more conservative.

3 more below the paywall…