What penalty?
 

This was told to me last night. Rather weird mess for a D3 game…

After a rally is complete, the table informs R2 that the libero on the floor wears the same number as one of the other players. Apparently she changed uniforms at some point after the lineups were checked and entered that way unnoticed (or the libero tracker was double checking etc. and by the time it was discovered the rally was already under way).

What’s the penalty?

According to the story, the libero was DQed, after the opposing coach proved with the rulebook that this is the correct penalty in this case. Sounds off and perhaps I’m looking in the wrong places, but I can’t find anything in the rulebook.

Both R1 and R2 have several decades of officiating, including D1 championship finals.

A DQ sounds like too harsh a penalty for this (unless there's more to the story). I think it's just a rotation / illegal alignment. (and, of course, make the libero go back to the original number)

But, I admit I'm mostly guessing here.

That’s what I thought. The person who told me the story was one of the refs and said that the opposing coach (not sure about the dynamic here - did he protest or how else…) pulled out a relevant rule reference…which I tried and failed to find. I’ll remember to ask him for the complete story the next time I work with him.

Any news on the rest of the story? I've relayed the situation to several NCAAW officials that I have worked with recently, and none come up with a DQ as part of the process.

No, he didn’t come back to me on that…yet. I will have a couple of matches this week with his partner from that day. I hope to remember to bring this up and see what he’ll recall.

To my knowledge, NCAA does not allow a player to change jersey number, unless necessitated by damage or blood. She's just not allowed to play while wearing the different number. (Unlike NFHS rules, which allow a player to be listed on a roster with a regular number and a libero number.)

Out of curiosity, was her "new" number listed as the libero's number on the line-up sheet?

If it's not discovered until after the beckon for serve, the penalty would be a point to the opponent for having an illegal player on the court. There's no way I would DQ her. Even if I thought she did it to try to cheat, I would only go with a red card, personally.

I'm willing to be corrected.

Worked with the other official this week. He remembered the commotion, but not the outcome (or so he said). And apparently it was from (at least) a year ago.
I’m pulling the plug on this one, chalking it to wrong recall.