SEA GAMES 2019: Ph vs Vie Volleyball

Watching the Volleyball SEA Games 2019: Philippines VS Vietnam held at the Philsports Arena I have analyzed the game. The PhilSports Arena has a dimension of 18 meters long and 9 meters wide with a free zone of 3 meters in all sides and a free space of 7 meters high. The game had its rules  and hand signals in the image shown above the following rules of the game are: 

1.      6 players on a team, 3 on the front row and 3 on the back row

2.      Maximum of three hits per side

3.      Player may not hit the ball twice in succession (A block is not considered a hit)

4.      Ball may be played off the net during a volley and on a serve

5.      A ball hitting a boundary line is "in"

6.      A ball is "out" if it hits an antennae, the floor completely outside the court, any of the net or cables outside the antennae, the referee stand or pole, the ceiling above a non-playable area

7.      It is legal to contact the ball with any part of a players body

8.      It is illegal to catch, hold, or throw the ball

9.      If two or more players contact the ball at the same time, it is considered one play and either player involved may make the next contact (provided the next contact isn't the teams 4th hit)

10.   A player can not block or attack a serve from on or inside the 10 foot line

11.   After the serve, front line players may switch positions at the net

12.   At higher competition, the officiating crew may be made up of two refs, line judges, scorer, and an assistant scorer

 The official game had its officiating crew:  The scorekeeper to keep track of the score, records player substitutions and scores, sanctions, final results, watches the server to watch out for serving out of order, and signing the scoresheet. The assistant scorekeeper that notifies for the fault with libero replacements. The 4  line judges to help 2 referees, Leung Yin Yan and Agung Purwantoro, in making judgement calls, like ball in or out, ball violating game violations or rules and etc. The equipment needed for the competition was a net and a volleyball.  As I observed while watching the competition, it is really observed that both teams had the basic skills needed in order to play such as passing, setting, spiking, blocking, digging and serving. I noticed some strategies that both teams have used that helped them keep up to their game. Starting off with the Philippines team, the players usually stay close to each other, there are always 2 blockers up front prepared to block the opponents hits, moreover, the team has a clap signal whenever they ask for a set from the receiver or any other player receiving the ball to prepare for a set and spike. I also noticed that as they played there is a “back-up” player at the back to be ready incase the spiker is unable to hit the ball they could spike for it instead same goes in defensing, I also noticed that usually they target the areas with least opponent and spike down so the opponent would have to dive for the ball giving them a probability of getting the point. Moving on to the Vietnam team, the players are scattered in the court and I couldn’t help but notice that they favor the left and right sides when spiking while as the Philippine team does not favor any specific area. Consequently, the Vietnam team tends to aim the spikes in the side near the “out” line, this could be an advantage that If they were able to spike the right amount of force that it wouldn’t be an out, with this strategy it could let the opponent’s team think that the ball would go out. During the duration of the game certain violations happened such as net touch, block touch, serving out of order, and failure to serve the ball out of the net.  As the game continued, Vietnam started to improve their attacks by the constant spiking and the higher defense of the blocking. Both teams were very good but unfortunately after the 5 sets of the game the team Vietnam had proven to be steadier then Team Philippines thus team Vietnam won.

 Photo Credits:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pinterest.com%2Fpin%2F297448750359118314%2F&psig=AOvVaw0MwQViXwu_EjykV_kI50wx&ust=1612835080764000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAIQjRxqFwoTCPi_16GV2e4CFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD