Still Undefeated in A10 Play

The Flyers went undefeated in what was a key weekend for the regular season A10 title. Before last weekend there were four undefeated teams: UD, St Louis, Xavier and Duquesne. UD beat both St Louis and Duquesne last weekend.

Kelly hosted Flyer fans for a Chalk Talk before the St Louis match on Friday. He spoke about the game plan for the match. As always it was a great learning experience and it gives you detailed things to watch for during the match.

The Flyers started off well in set 1 against St Louis but were a little sloppy at the end of that first set and St Louis won. But, UD outplayed St Louis the rest of the way to win in four sets and avoid that fifth set which is always a crap shoot. The stat page is unavailable so I cannot go into detail on sideout percentage or other stats. It is always a good win to beat St Louis and it will probably be even more difficult at their place.

On Saturday the Flyers played Duquesne which is also a well coached team and who came into the weekend undefeated. For the most part UD dominated play in this match. The sideout percentages are listed below:

Set 1 UD 58% Duquesne 37%
Set 2 UD 54% Duquesne 47% obviously this was a close set
Set 3 UD 76% Duquesne 37%

I thought about the individual players on this team and how much they have improved since last season. Yvonne and Kray are both hitting the ball harder. Megan is much more consistent. Shayne is getting better and better with playing time. The passing from Paige, Ally and others has become better and better as the season goes on. So, this prompted me to ask Kelly a couple of questions which he was kind enough to answer.
　
Q1: I am very impressed with the defensive and passing improvement shown since earlier in the season. Can you tell us about the commitment it has taken from the coaching staff to make this happen?

"The players are working extremely hard with their passing. It's been a steady progression. First of all, the passers need to try and be good and try and have few bad misses. Once they are good, and have confidence, then you start trying to make the progression to be great. We are seeing players that are in the process of making that leap. They are getting a lot of reps. Brittany is in the gym with players every morning at 8:00 working on their techniques. Passing is not an effort skill. It is reading, technique, and confidence. For example, early in the season, Yvonne would shank a ball and would respond by getting determined and trying harder and would end up trying to force the ball to go where she wanted. When you have that response, usually you stop reading the server and then get sloppy and loose with the techniques. The other thing that we've seen is players getting more comfortable passing next to each other. For two years, it was basically Paige and Amanda passing next to each other - and nobody else. It takes more communication and understanding who is taking what ball when you have three passers. We have four primary passers right now, and three of them are new to this roll on this team. We are definitely getting better in this area, but we know we can, and will, get a lot better".

Q2: After the match you mentioned about setting to the game plan. Can you tell fans what the setter is evaluating when the pass is in the air and how many of their setting options are predetermined based upon what the competition is doing. How often does the setting game plan change during a match?

"Think of football. Teams play different defenses and try and take away different things. A setter has to know what is being taken away, but also see the adjustments and changes as they are happening during a match or during a rally. This is really difficult to do and is constantly changing. Most good setters see this after the play is finished. The trick is to see this before you make your choice on who to set - and what play to call. Throughout a long rally, there may be a half dozen audibles that the hitters are calling. The setter has to hear and see them, see the block, and then make a decision on who to set. She's thinking game plan, hitter vs. blocker advantages/disadvantages, who the "hot hitter" is, etc. That's a lot to be processing in an extremely short amount of time. Sammie is getting better at this all the time. She's asked to do a lot. In over 20 years of coaching, I thought the setter that improved the most from the end of one season to the end of the next was Kacie Hausfeld. Kacie had a really good spring and just took off her junior year. I would now put Sammie in that category. She is a totally different setter, player, competitor, leader than she was last spring. This is not the same person that I was working with in April. She is very confident and is making this team go right now and we need her to continue to progress".

Q3: I have been really impressed with Sam's defense. Can you tell fans what makes her a special defensive setter?

"The reason you are impressed is because most setters have very little interest in playing defense. Sam reads the play and goes and gets the ball. Sounds simple, huh? But the thing I look for is, are we converting her digs into points. This was something we really struggled with in the past and early this year. We are working on this almost every day in practice. We have gotten better. The quality of her dig is important, Paige (or someone else) putting up a hitable ball, and the attackers coming in at the right approach angle are all critical with this".
　
Q4: I was told that you are working to have the team serve at a certain speed. Can you tell us why this is important?

"We are trying to put a lot of pressure on people behind the serving line. It's a philosophy I've just always believed in. I'm not interested in just putting the ball in play. I want to attack people with our serve. We want to serve with great pace. We think this is most important. Next, we think having the ball float and dance in the air is the next most important thing. And then we think location is the next most important thing. Most teams seem to put their priority on location. This is important, and against certain it can be really important. We just think we want to work on speed and float first, and then learn to locate it. We have radar guns on our servers every day. I'd like to get to the point where all of them are going over 40 MPH. Right now most players are between 35-42 MPH. Most of our players have increased their average speed by 5 MPH since the beginning of preseason. We think this is significant. This seemed to cause a lot of havoc with our opponents in last weeks matches".

One thing that I complained about before Kelly arrived is serving the ball with no purpose. As someone who has played in the back row (not at this level) it is important to force quick decisions from a passer and hopefully get them to move. If the ball is served without pace you have plenty of time to get in position and pass the ball. If it is hammered and floating you have to position yourself quickly but also adjust to the float of the ball. This is ten times as difficult as passing an easy serve.
　
Thanks for taking the time to answer these questions Kelly!

This weekend the Flyers take on George Washington and Charlotte. These are matches that we should definitely win so we will simply hope that the best team wins.

On Friday October 14th we play Xavier which should be another great match. The Frericks Center will be electric, hope to see you there.