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founding
Dec 16, 2021Liked by Joe Trinsey

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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