5-Play Sunday

On-to-Off and Off-to-On

In the most recent Sandy Sunday article I discussed some tweaks to Beat The Puller

One was you can tweak BTP is to challenge your offense by making them go “On-to-Off” or “Off-to-On” by imposing some constraints on how they have to pass or set the ball. Here’s 5 examples of NCAA teams attacking out of situations like that and getting productive sets and swings.

Off-to-On and Swing Away
This is the bread and butter of Off-to-On volleyball. In this case, the attacker is in transition, so she needs to hustle off the net, while getting her feet back under her to create an approach. In first ball situations, the challenge may be to close the distance and get to the net in order to avoid broad jumping.

A sweet detail here is that the setter is able to square up nicely and still present a borderline in-system set for her attacker. For me I judge the ability to create a string along the path to the antenna as the definition of getting in-system or in-rhythm.

If your players are hitting into the tape in this situation (very common), then they are probably broad jumping.

Off-to-On and Shoot
Often, if you’re able to Off-to-On, you’ll get an early pull and swinging away is the way to go. Especially at the juniors level, many blockers will bolt off the net as soon as the pass is off. Here the blocker is patient and reads well (partly because the handset from off is more threatening and more likely to lead to a quality set), so she correctly holds at the net to block.

In this case, the attacker can be at a disadvantage. It’s hard to see the block with the set coming over your shoulder and, if the blocker as or more physical than you, you probably don’t want to take her on. In this case, know your out shot and you can’t go wrong with high line.

And if you keep your Off-to-On sets more toward the middle, rather than pushing them wide, the shot back to the sideline opens up even a bit more.

Off-to-On and Roll Short