Reffing a match with a terrible setter

[zr1]

The other night in my league play, I was reffing where one team had a sub that night as one of their setters, and basically everything he touched was mangled horribly. We're talking right hand clearly contacting the ball first, pushing it towards the left, and then both somehow continuing out to make it go somewhere within 90 degrees of the target...

The problem: both teams were running a 6-2, the 3 other setters handled everything mostly clean. The other team opened with a huge run, it was something like 13-2 before the bad setter even got in the back row, but the side out putting him there was me calling a double on a pretty bad set from the other team. So now he's settings, first ball he touches is terrible, I whistle it. Same with the second. The third was also really bad, but at that point I started letting it go - my thinking the score was very lopsided at this point, may as well let them get some play in. Second game I was also rather lenient, and it was also a blowout, and thankfully after that I was done.

So - is this the right thing to do? What if the game was/got closer, do I start calling it again? I don't want to take over a game as the ref, but at the same time, it's not really fair to the team with decent setters to let every double contact on a set in the entire match go because one setter can't handle the ball... Anyone have experience / tips for handling this?

[PaREF]

I'm sure that you will have officials say that you need to be consistent in where you draw the line concerning ball-handling calls, and I would say that they are correct. However......

I've played in rec leagues for more years than I care to admit and I've officiated those (and other) leagues for almost as long. I will say that I do not officiate rec leagues exactly like I do high school or college matches. In college matches you really need to "call it both ways" when judging ball-handling. In high school, there are times that I will give one setter a little more leeway than the other - especially when the match is a clear mis-match.

Rec leagues are a different story. I've officiated high-level men's and co-ed leagues where they expect every contact to be judged the same. I've also worked leagues where there can be a large disparity in skill level and competitiveness between teams. I certainly will (and have) allow a lot more 'wiggle room' between setters when officiating matches where one team is obviously superior. It's very rare that the better team complains about the disparity. Actually, most times they're happy that I do it so they can have a few rallies instead of just being a serving-fest.

If you're playing in the league or you have officiated the teams in the league for a while, you should have a pretty good feel of whether or not you can (or should) set a different standard for each setter. If you're new to the league, it's best to call your matches like a college match. It usually doesn't take long to get to know what kind of league it is.

[oldsetter]

The Art vs. the Science.