Illegal starting player
 

This is USAV ruleset. Please disrgard how this occurred as it was a 13U club tourney and my worktable was entirely kids.

My down official checks the lineups and says everyone is correct but R35 is on the court instead of R33 who was written on the lineup. At this point we have a problem but no one notices. We play and at 2-7, R33 subs in for R35 (illegal sub) but no one notices. We play and at 5-11, R35 subs in for R33. At this point, I am now informed that the wrong person started the game. I know the penalty is supposed to be removing the points back to when the illegal sub first entered the set. Because the illegal player started the set, should I have erased all the points for team R and made the score 0-11. Then award a penalty point and serve to team S to make the score 0-12 with team S serving?

It depends on who won the rally to make it 5-11. If the non-offending team had won that rally, you wouldn't give them an additional point, it would just be 11-0.

If the offending team had won that rally, you'd erase that and make it 12. In either case, the offending team goes back to zero, as the illegal player first entered the set when they had zero points.

Thanks Felix. I figured you would respond :) Much appreciated!

Rules Question:
Beyond the fact it shouldn't happen at all if the table is working, any insight into how a player who is both (1) the originally written legal player who never left the legal line-up and (2) was granted entry (as an apparent sub) by the R2/table at 2-7, can generate a fault under USAV rules? Mere mortal logic has that player as a legal participant in both the original and mis-construed book line-ups at that point.

Practical Question:
If the work crew couldn't get the line-ups right for 16 points, am I right in assuming that R1 had more than their say-so that they remembered who was started on court? At some point, may you not have definitive knowledge on when the error in bookkeeping occurred with this type of assistance?

Response to Rules Question:
In USAV, because of the way score is kept, you can go back to exactly the score when any substitution occurs. It was verifiable that an illegal player started the set. Regardless of the substitution that put the correct player in the set, USAV rules makes you go back to the score of the offending team when the error happened. In this case, the illegal player occurred when the offending team had zero points since it was at the start of the set.

Response to Practical Question:
The score sheet was correct but the player keeping score did not believe that she was correct. In the second illegal sub, the scorer actually asked her coach. The coach then got me (R1). Luckily, when I explained to the offending coach what happened, she admitted she started with the wrong player on the court but since we had played a few points before she noticed, she didn't say anything because she didn't know what to do.

Illegal Player or Illegal ubstitution?
 

I'm new at Volleyball so please bear with me.

Are USAV rules so different from NFHS rules that a penalty so severe as loss of ALL points would be imposed?

According to your scenario as I understand it, R35 (a player legally on the roster) started the set in place of R33 (a player listed on the starting lineup). You play with R35 on the court to a score of 2-7, meaning there were at least two side-outs (the serve alternated at least twice). R33 then enters the court. Again you play on to a score of 5-11, meaning there were at least two more side-outs.

You now have the listed starter on the court and during the dead ball period, R35 legally enters the game as a substitute for R33.

Is that correct?

I don't understand why you would want to take points off the board.

By R33 entering the game at 2-7, you caused the lineup to be correct and the penalty would be that the team is charged with 2 of its 18 allowed substitutions (R35 in for R33 at the start, R33 for R35 at 2-7). But there would be no loss of points due to the penalty provision that "after the serve has alternated and the first serve is contacted, there shall be no cancellation of points." (That is the NFHS rule.)

Am I way off base?

The NFHS rule is different. The question posed was under USAV rules, which removes all points going back to the point of where the illegal player first entered the match, regardless of serve changes or if the player leaves the court.