This is an entry in my Midwestern State volleyball coaching log for 2015-16.
Monday
Because most of the staff was coaching their club teams at the Lone Star tournament, we didn’t have practice.
Tuesday
We took the team out to the sand court again. This time there was more of practice type focus in terms of doing some drills to work on ball control type activities – mainly in terms of serving and attacking. We wanted a little more focus than we had last time out. We did play some 2 v 2 + setter games at the end, though.
Wednesday
We were forced into the secondary gym because on Tuesday they started setting things up in the main gym for Thursday night’s sports banquet, which won’t get broken down again until Monday.
We started off with a variation on the cooperative cross-court hitting drill (team pepper). Previously, we started with them attacking through 4 and then switching to attacking through 2 with the objective of getting 5 consecutive dig-set-hit sequences in each configuration without stopping through the transition. This time we had them do a line-line version, so attacking through 4 and 2 and then 2 and 4. They were given 8 minutes to finish, which they did managed to do – just.
After that we did Run & Serve for the first time. We said they needed to get all the serves into the last 2 meters of the court and allowed for one missed serve by the group. It took them two times through to finish. Our thought for the next time is to exclude Zone 6, so force them to serve corners.
From there we moved to a servers vs. offense game which was an extension of the servers vs passers game we’ve been playing. This time we incorporated attacking. The receiving side earned a point if they got a good kill past the block (hard hit ball), and 2 points of they got a block-out kill. The servers earned a point for a 1 or overpass and 2 points for an ace. The receiving team was also given a point if the servers missed in the net or missed back-to-back (but not if they missed long or wide). Games were played to 15. The servers won each time, but the games were generally fairly close.
We finished up with a series of 5 v 5 games. Each side had a setter and MB at the net, and three back row players. Only earned points counted (ace, kill, block), but we subtracted a point on hitter errors in the net. Games were played to 8.
Although we normally go 2 hours, we decided to cut things short at about 90 minutes. We’d done all we planned and liked how the last couple of mini games went.
There was an assistant coaches meeting scheduled at 8:00, which I’d completely forgot about. We remembered right at the end of practice (just after 8:00), so I was late for what was only a 20-minute get-together. Whoops!
Thursday
No practice today as there was the sports banquet. Only the head coach attended out of the staff as the rest of us were involved in the USA Volleyball High Performance try-out that evening in Dallas. This was the second try-out for us having done the one the prior Friday as well. The first one, though, was mainly young kids. This second group featured more kids of recruiting age.
Friday
I ran this session as the head coach was in Dallas for a combination of recruiting and club coaching at Lone Star. We only had seven healthy bodies, but there were a couple of assistants available to jump in. The intended main focus was on blocking and defensive intensity. Because the main gym was still set up from the banquet the night before, we were in the secondary gym.
We started of with over the net pepper in groups of 3 and 4. After that, I had them doing a serving warm-up, then worked on some tough serving. They had to get +10, with a good strong serve being +1. If they missed a serve they would re-serve. If that serve was good, then it was a wash. If they missed the second, it was -1. I had it go for time.
Honestly, I’m kind of blanking on the rest. I know we did a 4 v 4 at the end where one side had a setter in 1, RS in 2, MB in 3, and a defender in 6, with the other side having a setter in 1, MB in 3, OH in 4, and defender in 5. We played 22 v 22 with serving done only into half the court. The players were pretty gassed at the end, and we only ended up going about 90 minutes.
Weekend
I spent Friday afternoon through to Sunday afternoon in Dallas recruiting at Lone Star.
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