My first ever head coach situation was for the Southeast Boys Scholastic team in the Massachusetts Bay State Games. You can think of the Games as an annual mini Olympic type of competition. The six regions of the state competed against each other in a wide array of sports. In volleyball it meant running team tryouts, having weekly training sessions for a month or so, then competing in the 3-day tournament during the month of July.
Having never even seen Bay State Games competition before, I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into from that perspective. I had enough prior exposure to high school boys volleyball to at least have a general idea of what to expect, but I know the specific level of play there would be among, presumably, the better players in the state. I did know that I had some talent on my team, though.
Then I heard my setter sprained his ankle the week before the tournament.
Forced to Re-Think the Setting Position
I had just one pure setter, so this forced me to have to rethink my whole line-up plan. Naturally, the big decision was who would take that role. I had two candidates. One was a kid named Josh who set and hit outside in a 6-2 system for his high school. The other was Greg, who was primarily a middle, but also set.
I only had two proper middles, but in the end I decided to have Greg set rather than Josh. Why? Because Josh was a real stud player who could potentially get two touches on the ball each time it was on our side of the net. If he set he’d only get one touch.
Of course, using Greg as setter in a 5-1 offense left me with only one viable middle. As a result, I had to rethink how to set my line-up. I decided to have him set out of the middle when he was front row. That way he could still perform the middle blocker function. While in the back row he played normal setter defense (right back), while my right side players played middle back defense.
Believe it or not, we won the gold medal with this line-up. Just goes to show, you can win with non-standard line-ups. This is why it’s so important for coaches to have a firm understanding of the different types of systems teams can play (see a book like Volleyball Systems & Strategies). It helps adapt to situations and be able to maximize the talents of the team.
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