Best Offense When Setters Arent Strong Players

Question
What is the best high school varsity offense with strong outside hitters and middle hitters but weak, slow setters?

Answer
Good morning!

Thank you for visiting www.allexpert.com.  This is a great question!  All coaches have this exact same issue: "What offense do I run with the people that I have?"

If you have 1 really good setter that you don't need to hit or serve receive, then you run a 5-1.  She may not be your best setter, but you let her run the offense b/c your other better setters are needed at other positions.  (This isn't the offense that I would pick for you.)  

Many coaches are in love with the 6-2.  There are so many coaches who run a 6-2 w/o really knowing if it's right for their team.  One advan: You have 3 hitters in all rotations.  But how many high school teams really need that?  One disad:  If you have slow, weak setters, then coming from the backrow to set is a challenging skill!  Plus these setters are probably very poor at backsetting anyway.  So the 3rd hitter option is wasted.  But some coaches want to "squeeze the square peg thru the round hole," so the run a 6-2 year after year.  There is 1 school here in Roanoke and 1 in Martinsville that I can bet my next paycheck will be running a 6-2 this fall.  That's not good for the team. (A 6-2 isn't the offense that I would pick for you either.)  

This leads me to the answer to your question!  haha  

Answer A:  If you have too many good hitters to find playing time for them all, go to one of them and see if she wants to set some.  Yeah, I'm proposing ditching your weak & slow setters and finding someone else.

But it may be too late to groom a new setter. A good setter takes years to train.  If the "volunteer" starts setting in practice, you will have to watch her then ask yourself, "By the time we get to the matches we HAVE to win in order to meet our team goals, will she be ready to run or offense?  Will her sets be good enough?  Will she understand the position well enough?  Will she be better than what I would have had?"  If the answer is no, then stick with the setters you have.  That's what I normally have to do.  This past club season, my MB's were not impressive at the onset of the season.  I took a girl from the right and moved her into the middle for a week.  Even gave her some scrimmage time in the middle.  Nope.  She hated it, she didn't have the instincts, so I said forget it.

Answer B:  Run a 4-2.  You didn't tell me if your setters were short.  But, regardless, if you run a 4-2, then your setters will never be coming from the back row and their slowness shouldn't be an issue.  Some coaches believe that running a 4-2 on varsity is patti-cake stuff, it's middle school stuff, it's beneath them .......but you do whatever is best for your team!  I ran a 4-2 in 1993 on my varsity team b/c I needed my setters to serve receive!  We won our conference with it, beating the defending state champs twice!  And it worked great b/c each girl was also a great dumper when she got into the front row.  If your setters are 5'5" or above, then they can learn to dump those tight passes also.  Plus, your setters won't have to worry about the back-set option, unless you want to run your middles behind your setters sometimes.  If you want to know more about that, give me a follow-up question.  

Please visit me sometime at www.coachhouser.com  Five summer site camps are done, there's one more in Delaware to go!  Your players will LOVE the site, as they see the pictures of the camps and the unforgettable awards that are given out!  I've already gotten emails from coaches who are interested in me coming to do a site camp for them next summer.  My staff is awesome, experienced and FUN!!

Chat soon!
Tom Houser
Roanoke, VA