The hard-driven ball rule causes massive confusion for volleyball
players. The reason is that different rulesets vary wildly in their
treatment of the situation in which a player is defending against a
hard-driven attack. This is further complicated by the variations
among the rulesets on the "first team contact" situation.
The legality of hand-setting and various beach digs is entirely
dependent on which rules you're using. Click
here for a list of common volleyball rulesets, where each are
used and links to on-line rulebooks if available. Here's a brief
overview of various rulesets and their mention of hard-driven attacks:
- USA Volleyball indoor and NAGWS indoor rules don't have a
hard-driven ball clause! No special treatment is defined. On all
first team contacts under these rules "successive contacts" are legal
in a single attempt to play the ball (hard-driven or not). This gives
rise to those ugly (but legal) first-ball sets that might get whistled
as doubles if they occurred during the team's 2nd or 3rd contact. A
lift/carry is still a fault regardless of the speed of the attack, or
method of contact.
- USA Volleyball, FIVB and AVP beach rules allow a momentary lift in
defense of a hard-driven ball (defined as "an attack-hit or blocked
ball traveling at a high rate of speed"), giving rise to open-palmed
overhead beach digs that might be whistled as lifts indoors. They also allow
multiple
contacts using finger action in a single attempt to defend a hard-driven attack.
Now
it wasn't always this easy and permissive--the rules used to be different and
confusing,
and
gave
rise to
why this page exists. However,
they
fixed
things
in
the USAV Beach rulebook in 2004-05. It had been broken for a couple of years
hinting
that
doubles with finger action were
not legal on a hard driven ball, when in fact, the rules interpreters were indicating
that they were legal. All is clarified now, and USAV beach, FIVB Beach and AVP
are all working in lock step on this issue--on a hard driven attack, if the player
has no time to do anything different, using the fingers in a setting action is
okay, and you can even double that contact if ya like.
- NFSHSA (Federation, high school indoor) rules are the most
restrictive on this count. They say that, multiple contacts are okay
in a single attempt to "Save a hard-driven spike on the team's first
hit, provide there is no setting action." Hence, an ugly double
contacted set is never okay on the first hit. Federation rules never
permit a momentary lift, either. You can shank a pass off your
forearms and chest, though, but only if you're attempting to dig a
"hard-driven spike."
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