Too many players

[chapmaja]

Ok, how do you handle this situation.

Team R loses a rally and as Team S is moving into position to serve, the libero for Team R comes on the floor, but nobody departs the floor.

The reason I asked is I had this situation on a freshman match last week. DHS's (school initials) libero came on the floor but nobody came off. I (R1) watched and waited for about 20 seconds for something to happen, trying to give DHS the opportunity to correct their issue (or call timeout, or a lineup check or something). Finally I had to whistle for the serve and as the R1 called the defense out of alignment for too many players.

Should I have done this, or should I have simply given a delay sanction for delaying the libero replacement. (Which would have been a red after they had two players found with earrings on trying to sub in earlier in the set).

What was worse is my R2 was just as clueless as DHS was about what was happening. Even after I called the illegal alignment and was holding up 7 fingers both the R2 and the coach were struggling to understand what was happening. Finally the coach called a time out and they needed the full minute to figure it out.

As a side note: In this conference we rarely have two officials on a freshman or JV match. They prefer (and the assigner agrees) to have most matches done with 1 official for frosh and JV (and we play all 3 sets).