A volleyball rally is when your team and the opposing team keep sending the ball back and forth to each other. The rules are no different for boys volleyball than for girls, but there is a difference in net height: Boys volleyball nets are set at 7 feet 11 5/8 inches and girls are set at 7 feet 4 1/8.
Basic Volleys
A volley begins when you serve the ball. It is then up to the other team to return the ball back to your side of the net while keeping the ball in bounds. Each team has three hits to get the ball over. If your team hits the ball four times, the rally ends and the point is given to the other team.
Inbounds Rules
On each court are boundary lines. In order to win a volley, you must make sure your opponent doesn't hit a ball that lands on your side of the net and inside the boundary line. Conversely, you must make sure you do not hit the ball outside of the boundary line. On most competition nets, there are plastic poles called antennae rising from the ends of the net. A ball hit over the net must also be within these two antennae in order to be considered in bounds. The antennae are seen as pointers with imaginary lines extending from them to the ceiling, so that the height of the ball is irrelevant as long as it stays within this space.
Illegal Hits
As stated earlier, your team has three hits in order to get the ball over the net, but there are legal and illegal hits. The ball can hit off of any part of your body during a rally. A player cannot hit the ball twice in a row, unless the first hit is part of a block, which doesn't count as a hit, or the contacts are made basically simultaneously upon receiving a hard serve or spike. Also, a player cannot legally hit the ball with the palm of an open hand unless swinging down on the ball.
Start of Rallies
Rallies are started by a serve. You can serve the ball overhand or underhand, but it must stay in bounds and if it hits the net, must continue on to the other side to be in play. The server must begin his serve behind the endline, but on a jump serve, he may jump from behind the endline, make contact with the ball and continuing into the court. If a ball is served into the net or out of bounds, or illegally, the other team gets the ball and will serve to start the next rally.
Rally Scoring
In the past, volleyball teams could score a point only when serving, which was known as side-out scoring. Today, rally scoring is the norm, and means that a point is scored on every rally, regardless of who served. So even if you are not serving, if you win the rally, your team gets the point.
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