WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Charger Sports Central: NCAA gets rid of double touch rule

Episode Date: February 28, 2024

The NCAA has voted to get rid of the "double touch" in college volleyball.  Lauren Passaglia, setter for Hillsdale College, gives her reaction to the new regulation.  

Hello and welcome to Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. My name is Evan Mick, and today I'm here with Lauren Pesalia to discuss the new NCAA volleyball rules. So the NCAA just announced a rule that on passes to your own teammates, so as long as it doesn't go over the net, players will be allowed to hit the ball twice in quick succession and it'll count as one hit, which basically gets rid of the double hits. So Lauren, as a setter, what is your instant reaction to this rule change? I think first reaction, a lot of setters were quite upset by the rule just because. setting is definitely an art that takes a lot of time and a lot of practice that I'm sure a lot of us has spent a lot of time towards perfecting. But I mean, at the end of the day, there's a lot of us that are going to benefit from it here and there too. There's a lot of jokes going around that anyone can be a setter now, but obviously it's a lot more than just the one contact that

we're sending to our hitters. So I think it's fun to debate about a little bit, but ultimately it's just going to allow us to play through more points a little bit more consistently. So do you think that there's any way that you'll be able to use this to your advantage next season? I don't think it's much of an advantage. I mean, I think everyone's still going to try to keep their hands as clean as possible because the most hitable ball is a ball that's not spinning or moving or rotating in any way. So I don't think it'll be anything like strategic, but if one of us happens to double the ball, we'll definitely continue to play through it and enjoy not getting called on that double. And is there anything that has changed in spring practices because of this rule change?

No, just giving our assistant coaches a hard time when one of us does double the ball in games. They'd like to try and call it on us, but we definitely are able to make the argument that he can't call it anymore. Well, thank you, Lauren. You're listening to Radio Free Hillsdale, 101.7 FM. That was Lauren Pesalia, set her for the Hillsdale Chargers on the new NCAA regulations. Have a great day.