Profile
Industrial Volleyball League, Inc. organizes indoor volleyball competition in the southern San Francisco peninsula and San Jose area. The actual IVL playing area encompasses San Jose, Saratoga, Santa Clara, Cupertino, Sunnyvale, Mountain View, Los Altos and Menlo Park. The IVL sets the standard for excellence in organizing leagues that are designed to provide the most rewarding recreational experience possible for its players.
Playing facilities
Colleges, high schools, and private institutions are used as evening playing sites Monday through Thursday. There are 5 levels of play and 8 different playing facilities to choose from. Wood floors and the modern, sink-down volleyball standards are in use at virtually all of the gymnasiums.
Season format
The IVL offers four main seasons a year: Winter (early January start), Spring (mid-March), Summer (mid-June) and Fall (mid-September). Each season generally runs for 8-9 weeks. There is also a mini-season in late November and early December. Team captains and company representatives can sign up at the web site 3-4 weeks before the start of each season.
Who can play?
The IVL welcomes any kind of team; from beginner/novice (what we call our Recreational B) to the very best players who would compete in our league. Twice, our champion has gone on to win the U.S. national coed championship. With six different levels to choose from, we can pretty much guarantee you’ll be placed in a league where you’ll have some fun.
League Format
There are five levels of play in the coed, ranging from recreational play (Recreational B) to our top level (A). There are three levels of play in the Reverse Coed (Silver BB, Gold BB, A), three levels in the Women’s (Silver BB, Gold BB, A) and three in the Men’s (BB, A, Open) when offered.
Coed Levels:
Recreational B is for the new teams who haven’t played a lot of organized volleyball and also for the returning teams who didn’t do well the season before,
Returning B is for the returning B teams who don’t want to play recreational ball and have no beginners on the team. These teams pass, set, and hit with some authority.
We at times will group the best Returning B teams into leagues. In the past, Tuesday B at Peterson and Wednesday B at Wilcox auxiliary gym have been strong, Returning B leagues.
Next level up is BB. These are competitive teams who have consistent setters and at least two players who can hit the ball crisply and in. There are some NCVA members in the BB.
The top level is A where the majority of the players are NCVA members and participate in weekend tournaments. Everyone on an “A” team has a solid volleyball background. In the past, teams from the top coed league in the IVL have gone on to win the National Coed Championship.
All leagues play rally score games. Generally two matches per night. Each match consists of 2 games to 25 points.
Each league meets once per week and usually consists of either six or nine teams (depending upon the number of courts at their facility). Each night, three teams play a six game round-robin on one court (team A x team B, team A x team C, team B x team C). A typical schedule is either play, play, ref or play, ref, play or ref, play, play. When a team refs first or last, some of the team members can show up later or leave early.
While two teams play, the third team officiates. Each team is required to provide a referee, an umpire (second referee) and two line judges. Referees are certified by taking a written test prior to officiating.
There is usually a practice night before each season where the new teams and also returning teams can sign up to play some games for fun, for free. This way we can ensure that the new teams are placed in the correct level.
During normal league play, there are 7 or 8 league nights, followed by a separate playoff night. A team will play at least two matches each night (a match is 2 rally score games to 25 points) so a team will end up playing 28-32 league games during the regular season. More than half of all the teams go to playoffs where there will be paid referees and umpires. There are no scheduled time-limit games in the IVL.
