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Durham Attack and Pakmen Final action

I watched my first Triple Ball Tournament this past Saturday. It was a 14U boy’s tournament at Saint Jean De Brebeuf in Woodbridge. I was very curious to see how the game would be received by the athletes, parents and coaches. I also wanted to take statistics and gather some objective data that would enable us to compare the differences from a serve-initiated rally versus a coach-initiated rally.

I was both encouraged and concerned after watching the first few pool play matches. The stats were indicating that the coach-introduced free balls were dramatically lengthening rallies and giving the athletes a chance to perform all the skills but the new format was causing some confusion. The athletes seemed to have difficulty adjusting to the new flow of the game and some observers also felt that the ability level of the athletes was higher than the level where Triple Ball was needed.

One key reason Triple Ball was introduced was to reduce the influence serving has on the game in this particular age group. Previous studies had indicated that rallies at this level were extremely short and would often be terminated by either a missed serve or an ace serve.
Having free balls entered by coaches forced teams to: set, attack, block and play defense much more often, which dramatically changed how matches were being won. It became apparent to me early on in the day that the well rounded teams would be successful with this format and that the more “one dimensional” teams would struggle.

By the end of the day teams were becoming more comfortable and seemed to be adjusting to the new format. The finals featured a Pakmen team that had a lot of success during the day converting on their free ball opportunities with big hits. I wasn’t convinced that any other team in the tournament would be able to block and defend well enough to slow them down. But apparently I was wrong, as the Mississauga team met their match in the final.

Pakmen’s opponent for that match was a quality Durham Attack team that had quietly played well all day. I thought a key to Durham’s success during the finals was their ability to extend rallies. For the first time, Pakmen’s big hits were being defended and in some cases blocked. This seemed to frustrate Pakmen and motivate Durham just enough to push them to a third set 15-13 victory in front of an excited group of parents.

For anyone who is interested, I’ve put some of the data that was collected into chart form. I thought it would be beneficial to compare this data with statistics taken from an international match. The international match I chose to study was this past summer’s Men’s World League Final between Brazil and Serbia.  Both charts illustrate the outcome of a serve at each level.

I took a look at all 10 World League playoff matches from the summer and the 6% ace rate is consistent with those matches as well. This is the area that seems to differ the most when it comes to serving outcomes at the different levels.  14U serves result in aces 4.5 times more often then international serves.
The following chart examines the percentage of second contact volley attempts by the designated setter and the percentage of third contact attack attempts in three different situations (14U coach toss, World League Final and 14U serve).

The results indicate that the structure of a 14U side out rally performed after a coach toss is very similar to that of an international standard. The outcomes recorded after 14U serves were much lower.
Over the past couple of days I’ve thought a lot about the comment that the skill level of these athletes was beyond Triple Ball and that this change is unnecessary.  From my perspective, there are 2 statistics that would heavily influence my response. The first is the percentage of serves that result in an ace or error; and the second is the percentage of volleys the designated setter performs.  These are two categories that indicate what impact serving is having on the game and whether or not the players are able to incorporate all the skills into their game play.
I plan on visiting a 13U girls Triple Ball event in January and taking a similar look at how the game is being played by those athletes. Stay tuned……

by Jason Trepanier (OVA Technical Director)