When should I ACCEPT the lineups in VolleyWrite?

This is a popular question among new scorers! There’s no need to worry about doing it “correctly” because you can UNDO the accepting of the lineups to make any changes. However, there are “best practices” that can be applied, depending on the match you are scoring.

NCAA Women

For college women’s matches, for Set 1, you should wait until the one-minute mark of the warm-ups if you want to avoid using the UNDO button to make changes. After Set 1, no changes can be made to the lineup after it has been submitted (Rule 10.1.1.7, 2018 Rules), so a personnel change would be a charged substitution. Due to the time constraint, accepting right away is necessary and recommended.

The nice thing about using VolleyWrite is that you will catch duplicate players in a lineup right away. And most college scorers will verify an empty libero box in the lineup early on, before the ACCEPT button asks for confirmation.

NFHS

For high school matches, we recommend waiting until the end of the warm-ups to ACCEPT the lineups for the first set. After set 1, there’s usually not a lot of time to waste, so it isn’t an issue.

There’s no worries because if you move a player between the court and the bench after accepting the lineups and before the first serve, VolleyWrite asks you to clarify whether the change is a substitution (which locks the player into that service position) or a change due to illness or injury (which allows the player to return to any position if and when that is possible).

USAV/NCAA Men

In Rule 7.3.4, the DCR states that “Once the line-up sheet has been delivered to the 2nd referee or scorer, no change in line-up may be authorized without a regular substitution.”

Therefore, you can accept the lineups once they are entered (and checked).

Best Practice

All scorers and officials should check the lineups before each set! When I score, most referees read the numbers on the lineups to make sure we agree, confirming which team is serving and which players are the captains. Use your eyes to verify that the numbers on the screen match those on the players’ jerseys when they get out on the court.

After all, “Well begun is half done!”

(or so we have found with volleyball scoring…)