Inside Volleyball Practice
“Who helps set up the gym? How do the players warm up? What drills do players run? In this article, you will be given information about what the volleyball team does for two hours after school for three days a week, as well as small details about the sport to help you understand and appreciate it more.”
Inside of Comp Sci High, we have six official sports teams: basketball, football, soccer, softball, track, and volleyball. While we may know what practice looks like for many of these sports, few of us know what volleyball practice looks like, especially compared to sports like basketball or soccer, that have a lot of popular visibility.
Who helps set up the gym? How do the players warm up? What drills do players run? In this article, you will be given information about what the volleyball team does for two hours after school for three days a week, as well as small details about the sport to help you understand and appreciate it more.
Arrival/Warmups
Once the girls on the team get out of class, just like any other sports players, they change into their sportswear and get ready for practice. While this is happening, the net is being set up (or has been set up) by either Coach Ayala or the volleyball team’s manager. Similar to other sports, the girls run 5 laps around the volleyball court, then do leg and arm stretches that last 10 seconds each.
However, their warmups aren’t finished once they do the usual warmups. Like every sport, players need to warm up on the fundamentals of their respective sport, which means the girls find a partner and “pepper” with each other, passing the ball back and forth with each other. This is only the first part of practice, which can last about 10 minutes; however, the next hour of practice is where the girls run drills that Coach Marisa selects.
Drills
After arrival and warmups, Coach Marisa calls the girls over to explain what their first drill of the day will be. Usually, they start off with a passing drill called “figure 8.” This passing drill focuses on ball control when the ball comes at a toughangle. The coaches and team manager are involved in this drill, and they usually hit the ball towards the girl, with more force as the drill goes on.
After about 15 minutes of figure 8, Coach Marisa calls the girls over to discuss the next area of focus which is attacking. There are three forms of attacking that are practiced on each day of practice, and these attacking forms consist of hitting (also known as a spike), shooting, and tipping (a softer version of hitting).
For hitting, the girls line up and take turns doing their hit approach to spike the ball to the other side, and the same is done for tipping the ball. However, shooting is done a bit differently. Instead, players use a setting motion in order to send the ball deep into the other side of the court. This is done best whenever the ball is too low to be hit or tipped over. While these are the drills the team works on most days, drills are also determined by what the team needs to work on in earnest on a particular day.
Scrimmage
In every sport, players can’t just practice over and over, thinking that’s the only way to improve. Players need to apply what they practiced into the closest thing that can simulate a real match. That being said, in the final hour of practice, the girls scrimmage against each other to apply what they practiced and understand how it could look like in a real game. Everytime they scrimmage, Coach Marisa changes the players on each team because one rule to know is that every team you play against won’t be the same as the last.
Dismissal
Once scrimmage hour is over, the girls have one final meet with Coach Marisa, before going to run 2 to 5 more laps, stretch, and leave for the day. Just like at the start of practice, Coach Ayala and the team manager take down the net. This is how dismissal for the volleyball team looks like, plain and simple.
Although their current record isn’t the best, everything the players have been practicing has slowly been implemented into their games. As a result of this, the volleyball team is in a better position than they were last year.