[Andy]

MCBear is exactly correct here. Unfortunatley, the rules of Volleyball do not allow us to use any preventive officiating in the situation you described. We have to assess a penalty of some type which has been clearly outlined already.

Whistleman - I'm guessing that you officiate other sports where you can apply some preventive officiating to keep stuff like this from happening.

For what it's worth - here is my similar story:

I was working an independant HS league that played under NFHS rules. This was several years ago. Varsity match - not very good quality of play. I was working alone. I looked over each player as they were warming up looking for jewelery, didn't see any. I gave the pregame speech at the captains meetings, coaches confirmed that all players were legally and properly equipped. We are playing the first game of the match, score is about 14-3 (pre rally scoring) and the team with 14 is going to serve. I look over at team R to check alignment and notice that one of the team R players is wearing those shoes that have the lights in the sole that flash when you walk. Those shoes were mentioned specifically in the rule book that year as being illegal. Why I didn't notice them in the pre-game or in the match up until that point, I don't know. I awarded team S a point which ended the game and explained to team R coach what happened. She was gracious about it, didn't realize that was a rule, but agreed with the call. In that case, it did not decide a match, but only a game. I still felt terrible about it. So now, you can bet that I am not only looking for jewelry, but any other illegal equipment.