JPete Week 2 Pro League
There will be a draft tonight and JPete will be on a new team as will all players. The top 4 point leaders become the captains and JPetes and only one player remains captain from last week - so 3 new captains. She will play 3 more matches this week. Its Wednesday, Friday & Saturday nights.
1. This is a learning process for me, but after watching 1 match it was clear if you dont have to take serve receive, you have an advantage in racking up points. Serve receive is the hardest thing to do on a volleyball court. JPete not only took serve receive, but she handled more serves than anyone else on her team. As such she finished the week with the most point deductions for Receiving Errors. That will impact her points standings. But...
Its not a bad thing for JPete. If she is testing the waters to see if she wants to look to play overseas, the greatest thing she can do as an OH hitter is show she can play 6-rotations. You have to do that in the pro game and its highly sought after. So this is a great opportunity for her to get better in this area. And she looked better already than from her time at UD.
2. The second thing that became clear after the Sat match and driven home again in her 3rd match is your team has to win. There are 180 team points up for grabs every match. 60 points go to every player on the winning team. 40 points go to every player when the team wins a set. Three opportunities for this 40 set points. JPetes team went 1-2 in matches last week. They lost the 3rd match 0-3, so she got no team points in the last match.
3. There is a team coach but I didnt see a lot of coaching by these people during timeouts. They looked more like managers keeping stats. The team captains run the show and maybe 1-2 other veteran pro player on their team they consult with. For JPetes team last week that was Captain Lowe and the setter Carli Lloyd. Both were highly decorated in college and have played pro for many years. Lowe played in the league last year. I dont know about Lloyd. Lowe was 2nd in points going into the last match last year. She dropped to 5th in the end. They played a pre-taped interview with her last night. She said she learned she didnt like losing. She said she couldnt believe she could play all those matches and in one match - the last match - drop from #2 in points to #5. (That cost her money.) She said that wasnt going to happen this year. I laughed out loud when she said that. She had to play the back row this last week, but she had other players drop back and hide her in serve receive. Thus avoiding a serving error and negative points. If youre captain, you can avoid negative point situations. And you can tell your setter to keep sending you balls so you can rack up points for kills.
4. The one thing she apparently didnt learn last year is you have to win sets and matches to get team points. She was #1-2 all week on the leaderboard. She is #5 today after the 0-3 loss last night. No team points in that match. She will also not be a captain this week. So that will be interesting. To be fair, she is a good Opposite hitter. But she is terrible in the back row...like really bad. I only saw her dig up 2 or 3 attacks in two matches. She missed a ton of others and the other teams knew she was bad because they kept sending attacks at her - which she couldnt dig. Her new team captain will probably hide her in serve receive as well, because she cant do it. But points can be manipulated. The potential loss of team points helps level that some, but not entirely. It will be interesting to see how it plays out. Im sure I have more to learn.
5. JPete: interesting observations. At UD she could terminate at will and take over matches. But she could also at times struggle with back row duties. TH pulled her several times from back row and used a DS when she was having a bad day. In the two pro matches I watched it was probably the opposite. I think she played better in the back row even with the receiving errors, because she took so many serves - the most on her team for the week. Work to be done to get better, but I was impressed with her in the back. She also dug up attacks well and passed solid off those digs for the most part. In the front row, she didnt play bad at all, but she will have to improve her arm swing speed and work on her contact point - getting it as high as she can. Right now she cant take over matches like college - as would be expected. It will be fun to watch this area of her game improve at this level She also has to figure her serve out. Too many serving errors. She didnt have that problem two years ago. She did have it at times this past year. She was not as good as the year before. So she will have to figure that out too.
Im looking forward to seeing how she does with new teammates this week.
1. This is a learning process for me, but after watching 1 match it was clear if you dont have to take serve receive, you have an advantage in racking up points. Serve receive is the hardest thing to do on a volleyball court. JPete not only took serve receive, but she handled more serves than anyone else on her team. As such she finished the week with the most point deductions for Receiving Errors. That will impact her points standings. But...
Its not a bad thing for JPete. If she is testing the waters to see if she wants to look to play overseas, the greatest thing she can do as an OH hitter is show she can play 6-rotations. You have to do that in the pro game and its highly sought after. So this is a great opportunity for her to get better in this area. And she looked better already than from her time at UD.
2. The second thing that became clear after the Sat match and driven home again in her 3rd match is your team has to win. There are 180 team points up for grabs every match. 60 points go to every player on the winning team. 40 points go to every player when the team wins a set. Three opportunities for this 40 set points. JPetes team went 1-2 in matches last week. They lost the 3rd match 0-3, so she got no team points in the last match.
3. There is a team coach but I didnt see a lot of coaching by these people during timeouts. They looked more like managers keeping stats. The team captains run the show and maybe 1-2 other veteran pro player on their team they consult with. For JPetes team last week that was Captain Lowe and the setter Carli Lloyd. Both were highly decorated in college and have played pro for many years. Lowe played in the league last year. I dont know about Lloyd. Lowe was 2nd in points going into the last match last year. She dropped to 5th in the end. They played a pre-taped interview with her last night. She said she learned she didnt like losing. She said she couldnt believe she could play all those matches and in one match - the last match - drop from #2 in points to #5. (That cost her money.) She said that wasnt going to happen this year. I laughed out loud when she said that. She had to play the back row this last week, but she had other players drop back and hide her in serve receive. Thus avoiding a serving error and negative points. If youre captain, you can avoid negative point situations. And you can tell your setter to keep sending you balls so you can rack up points for kills.
4. The one thing she apparently didnt learn last year is you have to win sets and matches to get team points. She was #1-2 all week on the leaderboard. She is #5 today after the 0-3 loss last night. No team points in that match. She will also not be a captain this week. So that will be interesting. To be fair, she is a good Opposite hitter. But she is terrible in the back row...like really bad. I only saw her dig up 2 or 3 attacks in two matches. She missed a ton of others and the other teams knew she was bad because they kept sending attacks at her - which she couldnt dig. Her new team captain will probably hide her in serve receive as well, because she cant do it. But points can be manipulated. The potential loss of team points helps level that some, but not entirely. It will be interesting to see how it plays out. Im sure I have more to learn.
5. JPete: interesting observations. At UD she could terminate at will and take over matches. But she could also at times struggle with back row duties. TH pulled her several times from back row and used a DS when she was having a bad day. In the two pro matches I watched it was probably the opposite. I think she played better in the back row even with the receiving errors, because she took so many serves - the most on her team for the week. Work to be done to get better, but I was impressed with her in the back. She also dug up attacks well and passed solid off those digs for the most part. In the front row, she didnt play bad at all, but she will have to improve her arm swing speed and work on her contact point - getting it as high as she can. Right now she cant take over matches like college - as would be expected. It will be fun to watch this area of her game improve at this level She also has to figure her serve out. Too many serving errors. She didnt have that problem two years ago. She did have it at times this past year. She was not as good as the year before. So she will have to figure that out too.
Im looking forward to seeing how she does with new teammates this week.