FED rules, HS varsity game last night. I'm R1.

My partner goes to check the lineups on the court before the start of game two of the match and discovers that both teams have screwed up the lineups. They have the six players on the floor that they want, but not in the serving order they want. We decide to call it a wash and start the game. After the match, I went to the rule book and case book to see how we should have handled. We came up with three alternatives:

1. Treat it as a double foul and replay
2. Penalize each team, ie. award a point to Team S, side out Team R and allow them to serve.
3. Penalize in the order we discovered.

We discarded option 3 as there is no protocol defining which lineup to check first.

I did call the state rules interpreter for an official interpretation, but wanted to know how everyone else would handle this situation.

It is simple, you place them on the floor in the order given.

If they want both want to take the penalty to adjust, then I would do it in a manner that would result in two side outs, and then it basically would be a wash.

Brian's right. You do put them in the order that the lineup is written in the scorebook/line-up sheet.
And if I recall correctly (again, don't have my books with me at work), they are not allowed to accept a penalty. They have to play on in the order that was written.
Someone please correct me on that if I'm wrong, because I will probably forget to re-look that one up (Thanks).

I think a coach can still claim they submitted the wrong line up (wink, wink), and since it is after the deadline, we have have to assess the penalty and use the new line up.

In this case, other than just correcting it without sanction, I guess it is up to you in how you handle it.

I feel the proper way should be to go with the line up on the floor, and then let them substitute to correct it. But, there are other viable options. The loopholes mean there is no "right" way to do it, you just have to do what feels right to you.

This is exactly the point. The rules are very vague on this subject. The rulebook addresses the submission of an accurate, written lineup and the penalty for not submitting one. The case book talks about a player on the floor not listed on the lineup. Neither addresses a lineup submitted with the correct players, but an incorrect service order due to the coaches dyslexia, or whatever :).

The interpretation from our state rules interpreter was that you play in the order the lineup is written. The coach is not allowed to take a penalty to correct the lineup. She also told me that since this was an early season non-region game, calling it a wash and allowing them to correct the lineup was acceptable. Thanks for the feedback, guys.

Don't have my rule book here, but everything I have seen and done as an official, has always been to make the correction on the court so everyone matchs the lineup that was submitted. If coach made a mistake, too bad. I always check the receiving team first and than check the serving team, (done from the serving side of the net). Thought I read that somewhere, but I may have just picked up a habbit.

Case book and manual
 

Yes, you probably read that in the NFHS case book and manual.


"The umpire shall look through the net to check the receiving team players' positions against the line-up card, then check the serving team."