A couple situations from the weekend

[FMadera]

Originally Posted by Scrapper1

Two things from a Saturday tri-match.

1) Here's another "what do I do if I know I'm right" situation? I'm R1. Table crew is made up of students, but my R2 is very good. Subs for both teams approach the sub zone. Partner authorizes S-13 to enter the game for S-14 and turns to authorize Team R's sub. S-13 immediately steps off the court and is replaced by the libero.

Partner turns back to Team S and realizes the libero replacement has occurred but didn't see who was replaced. I see him take a long hard look at Team S's bench and he tells the libero tracker who was replaced.

When libero comes off the court, S-13 returns to the court. Perfect. Except that partner thinks that it was S-14 who was replaced. He takes #13 off the court and puts #14 into the front left position.

Now, I'm 99.5% sure that it should be #13, but coach doesn't make a fuss. #13 looks confused (but now, so do I), but doesn't protest. I tried to give R2 the "skunk eye", but he doesn't respond. So we play.

At the end of the set, he comes to the stand to talk about it. He's 100% sure that 14 was replaced, not 13. After the match, the table crew pulled up the live stream and ran it back, and it turns out that I was right.

So what should I have done (a) when I realized that the R2 didn't actually observe the original replacement or (b) when I was 99.5% sure that the subsequent replacement was botched?

Headsets would've made this easy. I could've just said "libero's in for #13" and it would've been all set. But I haven't invested in a set yet, and nobody here uses them for D3 matches anyway.

2) Ever have a back row player make you doubt yourself? #5 is the back row setter in Rotation 3. For some reason, she comes to the net and strongly blocks the opponent's attack. She's not up there trying to save an overpass. She's intentionally blocking the ball.

I blew the whistle, but immediately wondered if I had missed a rotation and she was actually front row. I knew I was right, but she seemed so sure of what she was doing, I had to do a double-take. Thankfully, I was right, but that moment of doubt was terrifying.

1. If you are 100% positive whom the libero replaced, step in and correct that. There's a chance of a team being incorrectly penalized (versus semantics of which call is "correct" when the same team will win the rally regardless), so by all means, call your partner over, give the information, get it right, and while the R2 fixes things, explain to the captains the issue and the solution, then play again.

And yes...invest in a set. I can point you to a great deal if you want. No one there uses it for D3...yet. But you can affect change with that. We use them in Wisconsin for D3 often.

2. Yes. Players do dumb things sometimes.