This is an entry in my volleyball coaching log for 2016-17.
Just two weeks left in the regular season and things are still working themselves out in the Lone Star Conference. Most of the results went as expected, but there were a couple of interesting ones. Top of the last was Cameron getting its first victory of the year against Western New Mexico. The other was Commerce winning at Kingsville. Angelo continues to roll along and started the new week #10 in the Division II poll.
Unfortunately, our losses against Eastern NM and Western NM (especially the latter), probably reduced our chances of moving up from 8th place to near zero. Western doesn’t have any easy matches left, but play four of their last six at home. We probably need them to lost almost all of them to have a shot at jumping into 7th.
Monday
After the weekend’s exertions, and with the match upcoming on Tuesday, we had a light session. We did some serve & pass. Then we worked a little on a new option for one of our serve receive rotations, which has had some problems. Lastly, we had them play some 4s. All together it was about 75 minutes.
Before practice we did video on the upcoming match. We also talked about some stats I developed. One of our biggest focus areas of the last few weeks has been defense. One part of that was getting our block timing corrected as we were late very frequently. The other part was improving positioning and reading, as well as digging the ball and having a stronger mentality about keeping the ball off the floor.
The stats I did compared our performance in the first half of the conference season to how we have done through the second half to-date. I calculated block and dig percentages. By that I mean I calculated the number of non-error attacks (excluding blocked balls) by the other team. I then divided blocks and digs by that number to get a percentage.
Up to this point we played five matches in the second half of the conference schedule. In all but one, our block percentage was higher than when we played those same teams the first time around. The same was true for dig percentage (different team, though). I also added blocks and digs to come up with an overall defensive percentage. In only one instance was that number lower the second time around. In three cases it was 10 points higher.
Tuesday
We played Texas Woman’s at home. Like our Commerce match two weeks prior, this was a chance to reverse a tough 5-set loss the first time we played them. Things didn’t go to script.
This was a really disappointing performance. We lost 3-0 despite holding the other team to hitting below .100 as we only managed to hit .041. We only got kills on 23% of our swings, which is incredibly low. Our serving and passing wasn’t great, but wasn’t bad. The one issue we had with the serving was bad errors. At one point in the third set we missed three straight in the net. Hard to get much going when you do that.
After the match we ended up having a long meeting in which we collectively talked about the vibe on the court and how we can get things turned around to finish the season strong and positive.
Wednesday
We actually didn’t train for very long this day. Much of our practice time slot was dedicated to video review. We watched some of the prior night’s match to look at things both offensively and defensively. In the case of the latter, there wasn’t a lot of negative to point out. A little bit of positional stuff and some movement bits, but in line with what we’ve seen in the numbers, we’re definitely doing better. In terms of the offense, we talked quite a bit about the purpose of what we’re looking to do in attack. There were a number of questions, which isn’t a real surprise given how poorly we’ve generally been on offense of late.
Once it got to practice, we only really did one set of exercises. On one court the head coach worked with the passers on some technical elements. On the other court I initially had the Middles. A major focus was on spacing to allow them to be able to attack different angles. Later the OHs came over to work on the tempo of their sets as well. This has been a major breakdown of late.
Thursday
We watch video on our prior match against Friday’s opponent before practice. This was a shift from our prior scouting where we focused on recent matches. Partly, this reflected the fact that there wasn’t likely to be much change in opposing personnel or playing style from the last time we played. Mainly, though, we wanted to look at the things that worked on offensive and how we could be a bit better defensively.
Practice itself was something of a progression. We started with some 3 v 3 over-the-net pepper – first with down balls, then back row swings. After some target serving work, it was on to an out-of-system setting and hitting exercise, and then Side-v-Side, a competitive variation on Cooperative Cross-Court Hitting. We ran the latter to continue the prior day’s work on outside set rhythm. From there we shifted to 6 v 6 play.
This was one of the more positive and energetic recent sessions. It seemed like a good prep for the weekend’s matches.
Friday
We played at Tarleton. Our home match against them was one of our better performances.
The return fixture was pretty good as well. We lost 3-0, and the scores didn’t really flatter us, but offensively we were much improved. Unfortunately, they really did a number on us with a couple of tough servers. They also played really good defense. I think the team came away feeling much better than in other recent performances, while also knowing where we need to be better.
Saturday
We were at conference leaders Angelo.
When we played them the first time it was a poor match. This time it was much better. We still lost 3-0, but we continued to perform at a higher level. We made a defensive change for this match. All season we’ve played with our OHs defending in middle back (6). For this match we shifted one of them to left back (5). She ended up with 18 digs. This is something we may expand heading into the final week of the season.
Observations
Tuesday’s match could end up being a “what could have been” moment for the team. We’ll have to see when the dust settles at the end of the conference season.
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