Defending the three-middle attack

Question
What are the best ways to defend against the three middle hitter attack?

Answer
Good morning Joe and welcome to www.allexperts.com!

Just to be clear:  You're talking about the offense where 3 different girls play MB, right?  One will play for 1 or 2 rotations, another for 1 or 2, and the 3rd girl may play MB for all three.  Am I right?

The defense against it doesn't change from what you normally do.  Blockers must think:  "Where is the set probably going?  And, if it goes there, where will she probably hit the ball?"  So your blockers may have to bunch middle, load right or load left.  Sometimes your blockers will have to follow a hitter, depending upon how good a hitter she is AND if your block has another girl to defend.  

Last year, we played against a 15's team that has one dynamite middle hitter.  So, my MB followed her if she did a slide approach or if she did an approach into the 3 zone.  On serve receive, if she ran an outside route, my MB was there on her.  We were like, "Go ahead.  Set someone else.  We don't care."  

Now, you may say, "That was easy.  Everyone does that."  Yes, it is pretty easy.  But, no, not a lot of coaches will do that.  

If you're defending against any offense -- not only the 3 MB offense -- you do kind of the same thing.  You decide which hitter(s) are the most dangerous, and that's where your blockers shift to.  You teach your antenna blockers to follow the hitter who's in front of them (unless the opponents are running an x play) b/c there's no need to stand there and watch.  

Did this help any?  I would not worry about the 3 MB offense.  If the opponent has 3 really good hitters, then you have a problem, regardless of whether 3 of them are MB's or not!  haha  If the opponent has a lot of tall hitters, that's not that big of a deal, unless they're all very good.  

Last night I saw a team with only one girl taller than 5'7" beat a team that could put a front row at the net of 6', 6' and 5'10"  And these were PRIVATE schools with only about 100 kids in their high schools.  The match was won with strategic serving, serve receiving, setting, hustle and teamness.  Your matches probably will be won that way as well.

If you have any other questions, please follow up, or email me at [email protected]  

For all this typing, would you do one favor for me?  Would you visit me at www.coachhouser.com!  I think you'll really enjoy the smiling faces!  Also, please spend a moment investigating our summer site camps for 2011.  Site camps will start being awarded on Dec 1st, and it's first come, first served.

Thanks and hope to hear from you again!
Coach Houser