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Great post Joe. Of course when we train First Ball, the emphasis is on offense (i.e. serve receive). Are there any differences between training First Ball defense and Transition defense? I suppose reminders of what play the receiving team is likely to run out of SR.

I'd also be curious to look at the impact of various serving strategies on FBSO%. Serving seams is obviously good. How about serving the other team's front row OH? Serving Zone 4 to throw off OH timing? Serving Zones 1-2 in Ro 1? (Time for me to go watch the Kirsten Bernthal Booth workshop.)

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I think those are really good topics to research more. I think it can be pretty team-dependent, but I wouldn't be surprised if there's some broad trends.

I tend to think of First Ball defense as (1) more controlled and organized and (2) more block-dependent. Transition defense being a little more of a scramble and little more dig-dependent.

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