Too many players
 

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).

I would have gone with the delay. But, what do I know?

Once your arm goes up, no more substitutions or replacements. At that point, I would have called a delay for having 7 players on the court. This is definitely an unusual situation and one that I have not had to deal with...yet :)

Just curious ... what rule are you citing to say this?

To answer Chap, this is a delay.

Ages ago in a pre-season rules clinic scrimmage, I had my libero enter to serve and no one came off in order to create this kind of situation. [They asked the two coaches to create havoc if possible]. Unfortunately, no one (at least not the R1 or R2 in training) noticed the extra player for the duration of the rally. The trainer may have chosen to pass on that to correct some other glaring fault (I don't recall), but ever since I've been far more aware of how easy it is for the truly bizarre to slip past the less prepared official when they don't have good help.

I assume only if you actually get caught unaware like that R1 do you actually want to go with the illegal allignment, no? It sounds like others are suggesting there is clear support to call the delay without going through with the signal for serve once the team delays completing the replacement past the point that R1 extends the arm [I had similar USAV conversation last season, don't recall on NFHS].

If L (or the person L is replacing) comes on the court, and the person that is supposed to leave doesn't leave immediately, it's a delay. The definition of "immediately" is not spelled out ... but I'd say once it's clear no one's leaving, that's the time to signal it. If they are causing you to delay the beckon, card it.