Now, Illinois State volleyball fans will have twice as many opportunities to raise their signs and shout "Point, Illinois State."
The new women's college volleyball rules have scrapped the 'side-out' completely. Now, games one through four will be played to 30 points, with a point awarded on every serve.
In addition, serves which hit the net (previously service errors) but continue over the net and fall on the opponents' court are in play, just like any other ball under previous rules.
Fans will get the chance to view the 'new game' for the first time at Satuday's 3 p.m. Red/White scrimmage in Redbird Arena.
One of the most significant changes the rules will bring about figures to be the decline of high-risk serves. Now, a service error gives the other team a point. But Illinois State coach
Sharon Dingman doesn't want to quell her team's serving aggressiveness, especially all-conference setter
Becky Weber.
"We believe Becky Weber is one of the best servers in the nation," said Dingman, whose team had three of the top 10 individual servers in the Missouri Valley Conference last year. "We might miss a few, but we will stay aggressive with our servers. We've told our team that the serve is your first opportunity to score points and we will take advantage of that."
As Illinois State prepares to open the season Friday against No. 26 Louisville in the first round of the Barker GMC Classic at Redbird Arena, Dingman still believes a good serve allows the serving team to dictate play.
"Good serving leads to great blocking opportunities, and we want to be in that situation," said Dingman.
The other part of the rally game Dingman and her staff have studied is match-ups. Using assistant coach Phil Nickel's club volleyball team last spring, they charted games and concluded that teams will likely go through only two or three full rotations per game. So, matching up hitters vs. blockers at the net from the start becomes even more important than before.
"You have to decide if you want to start with your strongest server, or you want to try and match-up with the other team at the net," said Dingman. "We'll probably want to start with Becky serving at the beginning of the season, but that strategy might change from match-to-match or game-to-game."
The rule changes were designed to make match times more consistent; under rally scoring, some three-game matches lasted barely an hour and some five-gamers went three hours. Last year, game two of Illinois State's win at Creighton took nearly an hour (ISU won 19-17), but featured several game-saving plays on both sides and plenty of drama.
"We'll miss those kinds of games," said Dingman. "But it will be exciting to see how the new system works out. In the side-out game, the better team had the best chances to win. I think this will give the underdog a lot more chances to win."New Rules
A point awarded on every serve; no more 'side outs.'
Games 1-4 played to 30 with rally scoring (still must
win by 2 points).
Game 5 (if needed) played to 15 with rally scoring.
A serve which strikes the net and falls on the
opposing side is in play.
Only one toss per serve (previously, a server was given one 'let' if she allowed the toss to drop
without touching it).
