Responsibilities as a Setter

[strazzere]

Responsibilities as a Setter; Timothy Strazzere

The setter has many responsibilities to attend to during the course of a game. First and foremost; like all players, the must play defense. The only exception to this rule is that when a “free ball” is coming over the net, the setter themselves has to call a “free ball”. If the setter does not commit to defense first, they will become the weak link in a team’s defense.
Next, depending on how a team is run, the setter will call (or communicate the plays a coach tells them to run) the plays. This includes the duty of watching a team’s defense. The setter should be asking themselves all the time about the other team’s defense. Where are their blockers? Are the double/triple blocking? Not closing the block at all? Is one of their blocker too short? Are there open spots on the court? These are things the setter should be looking for and communicating to their hitters. Calling plays can make or break a good setter. You don’t need to necessarily be fancy, just analyzing the situation and apply a play that maximizes your chances at success. Finding a bad match up is key if your outside can hit a high ball and down the line – is the team’s right side short? Exploit that weakness!
This is your main responsibility as a (competitive) setter; increase your hitter’s chances at finishing the play. Worse case scenario, on a broken play, your hitter can tool the block, hit into the block and allow the coverage to renew the play, or place the ball on the other side of the court- most likely not for a kill. The setter wants to minimize these instances; however it is often out of their control and up to the passers. A dream scenario; which will most likely never happen in higher level ball, is no block. The best case, which you should strive to obtain consistently, is one blocker for every hitter. This combined with a good set will give the hitter at least one strong hit (depending on if the blocker is taking away line or cross), a tip, power tip, tool, etc. This gives your hitter the most freedom, the easiest case to put the ball down.
How can you obtain this? An aggressively run offense is your best bet. Having the middle run a fast play, normally a quick will claim the middle blocker. Make your opponents respect your middle, if they don’t go up with him/her, set them. Make them pay for it – until the learn. This goes for them cheating their positions also – if they baby the middle hitter, make them run to the outside for some hits until they stop cheating. If the block is there, then the middle has done there job – they drew the other middle and made him commit to the wrong hitter. Now a decently paced set to your outside or behind to you opposite should earn your hitters a one vs. one.

Other aspects of the game the setter should be concerned with:
The setter needs to know their players, which ones work well under pressure and which ones don’t. You need to keep moral high, often by taking blame for what is not yours. Setters need to assist their hitters in forgetting about bad plays, a clear minded hitter is much more efficient than one hating themselves for missing a hit. If you set someone and they get roofed or hit out, simple say “my bad” – even if it wasn’t. Takes some of the pressure off the hitter, or as them “was that too high? Too low?” etc – don’t make them feel like it’s their entire fault. The worse thing you can do is glare at them or tell them to hit it in – that’s not going to solve anything!