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Basic Volleyball Rules and Regulations For Scoring, Rotation Serving and the Court
Beginner players get their frequently asked questions answered since they're trying to understand the basic volleyball rules when starting their playing career.
These questions usually concern queries about what the various lines on the court mean, what's legal and allowed when contacting the ball, and what is illegal when touching or not touching the ball when competing, how does scoring work, and much more.
Article At A Glance
- Discover the essential aspects of playing volleyball with this comprehensive guide to the basic volleyball rules about the volleyball court, the lines on the court and the volleyball net.
- Learn about the officials, the referees are the people that officiate the games during your tournaments and school competitions
- Discover the basic volleyball rules starting from the number of players allowed on both teams, what the role of a captain is and what is the libero position about
- Get a better understanding of what a game, a set, and what a match is in addition to how points are scored
- Get a better grasp of what to expect during a volleyball match from the point scoring process to what actions are considered legal and what are illegal.
Even though there are different disciplines of the sport like two person vs. two person, four player vs four player, these rules focus on the six person vs. six person style normally played in high school and collegiate matches and competition.
Basic Volleyball Rules about the
Court, the Net, the Antenna
- Each team plays on a half court 30 x 30 feet
- The two half courts are divided by a net
- The full court on which two teams compete against each other is 30 feet by 60 feet
- The two sidelines are the longest boundaries on the court
- The two endlines are the shortest boundaries on the court and they connect the sidelines
- The centerline runs under and parallel to the net and divides the full court into two half courts.
- A ten foot line appears on both half courts and divides each half court into one third which marks the front court area commonly called the front row
- Net height for high school girls is 7' 4 1/8
- Net height for high school boys is 7' 11 5/8"
- Two antennae are placed on each end of the net over the sidelines marking the vertical boundary of the court
Basic Volleyball Officiating and Rules about the Officials
Basic Volleyball Rules: The first referee
calls the game from an elevated stand watching for common volleyball faults, calls volleyball fouls, assigns points and sideouts.The first referee
- calls the game from an elevated stand watching for common volleyball faults
- calls volleyball fouls, assigns points and sideouts
- final decision maker on questionable plays
- assigns violations and issues red or yellow cards
- calls timeouts when requested properly
- watches the top of the net for adults during play
- runs the coin toss between captains and instructs them about basic pre-game rules and rituals
- check scoresheet and sign it
Second referee
- Calls the game from the opposite side of the net across from the first referee while standing on the ground
- monitors each team's rotation order while in serve receive
- monitors scoring table, score and scoresheet
- watches action on the bottom of the net
- monitors substitution zone and libero entry and exit
- checks scoresheet and signs it at end of the match
Basic Volleyball Game Rules
- A team can hold a roster of 12 -14 players
- Only 6 players can be on the court to compete
- Three (3) players are allowed in the front row and three (3) are backcourt players
- Each team has one libero allowed to be on the court during a rally
- Each team needs 1-2 players designated as a captain
- Only the captain(s) represents the team during the coin toss to determine who serves first and when talking to the referee during a rally
Basic Volleyball Rules
- A volleyball match is played with the best 2 sets out of 3 or the best 3 sets out of 5
- A set is a game played between two teams until one team scores 25 points first
- The winner of a match is the first team to win two sets out of three or three sets out of five
- If playing a five set match, a team can lose 2 sets in a row but must win the remaining three sets to be declared winner of the match
- At the end of playing four sets, if both teams are tied at two sets apiece a tie break set is played. The winner of the tie break set, is the winner of the match
- Tie break matches are played to 15. The team that scores 15 points first, wins the match
- In some competitions, when the first team scores seven points, the teams must switch sides before play is allowed to continue
- Teams use rally scoring during competition where the team that wins the rally regardless of who serves wins a point
Basic Volleyball Rules: Teams use rally scoring during competition where the team that wins the rally regardless of who serves wins a point (White and Blue Review)Basic Volleyball Rules
Legal Volleyball Hits
- A player can score a point by contacting the ball with any part of their body,
Basic Volleyball Rules
Can a player contact the ball more than once?
- Only one consecutive contact is permitted per player.
- A player cannot contact the ball twice in a row.
- The ball can contact the net and be played off the net during a rally
- A player in the backrow can attack hit a ball as long as they take off from behind the ten foot line
- A backrow hitter can land in front of the ten foot line as long as they have contacted the ball before they land in the front row
- A setter can attack hit a ball as long as she is in the front row
A ball is out if:
- it contacts the antenna before going out
- it lands anywhere outside of the opposing team's court without being touched or landing on a boundary line
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I share alot of individual, partner and easy-to-do volleyball serving drills we do in class with my followers.
Many of these volleyball practice drills you can do at home by yourself or try at your next practice with your teammates.
If you're a B team or JV player trying to make varsity next year...your goal should be to complete 1000 reps a day of at least three of the basic skills on your own...volleyball passing, serving and setting should be at the top of the list.
Volleyball Rules:
Where Do You Go From Here?
Where do you need to go now?
Here are three options:
- Learn more about Basic Volleyball Rules.
- Follow the suggested reading on our Sitemap page Learning How To Play (Sitemap)
- Or visit the pages in the Rules section in the drop down menu at the top of the page.
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From Lady Vol to Legend: Coach April Honored At UTK Champions Weekend
Lady Vol volleyball legend and record holder Coach April Chapple a University of Tennessee, Knoxville Hall of Fame Inductee, 3-time All American, 3-time SEC Champion, SEC Tournament MVP, 2-time All SEC Team is celebrated with her 1984 SEC champion teammates at Neyland Stadium during Champions Weekend on November 1-2, 2024.
- the first First Round Draft Pick for the first American pro indoor women's league
- named to the first First Team All-Pro team for Major League Volleyball in USA volleyball history
- former USA National team member
- one of the few American women players named as an Italian Pro League D-I Championship Finalist, Italian Cup Finalist and Cup of Cups Tournament Finalist
April Chapple The first First round Draft Pick For Major League Volleyball the first American Women's Pro League Honored At Athlete Unlimited Pro Volleyball Match
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Serving slang is not just about individual techniques; it also relates to overall game strategy. A coach might instruct a player to serve a "short serve" or a "deep serve" to target specific areas of the opponent's court or exploit weaknesses in their serve receive formation.
Ari, my private training client and I are working specifically on serving on jump float cross court serves ...short to Zone 2
There's so much we work on to get to this point where she can contact the ball with
- the same toss height and same toss location
- the same armswing speed
- the same timing for when her serving hand contacts the ball
- the middle of the hand contacting the middle of the ball every single time
- getting use to watching her serving hand contact the ball at the highest point of her jump ...before she starts to land
- and finally contacting the ball in the precise spot on the ball so it goes where the coach wants the player to put it so in this case ..a short serve in the farthest short right corner on the court also called Zone 2.
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From Lady Vol to Legend: Coach April Produces Powerful Passionate Players...is that you?
Congratulations to my seven Boys-18s Vegas Volley club players who played in two state championship finals yesterday, the 3A and 5A State champinship finals at Sunrise Mountain High School.
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