Mastering Serve Receive: Drills, Techniques & Games for Consistent First Contact

with Kamalani Akeo
University of Pittsburgh Assistant Coach;
3x Final Four (2023, 2024, 2025);
2024 AVCA "Thirty Under 30" recognition;
Named one of 2023's "College Coaching Hotshots" by Volleyball Magazine;
Pitt volleyball setter from 2015 to 2018;
2016 ACC Setter of the Year;
2x AVCA All-East Coast Region Team (2016, 2017);
3rd all-time (Pitt volleyball) with 3,956 career assists

Take your team's first contact to the next level with Mastering Serve Receive: Drills, Techniques & Games for Consistent First Contact.

In this comprehensive on-court session, Pitt Volleyball's first-ever ACC Setter of the Year and now assistant coach Kamalani Akeo shows you how to teach and refine the art of passing through clear instruction, progressions, and player-driven drills.

Coach Akeo breaks down serve receive by starting with core technical elements platform, angles, and movement before building toward game-like execution.

You'll get an inside look at how to incorporate both internal and external cues to enhance athlete understanding and performance, and how to layer in spin and variability through the innovative "Spin School" progression.

The video features a wide range of competitive drills and small-sided games like:

• Pick a Side
• Moving Target
• Ladders
• 3-2 Games

Each activity challenges your players while reinforcing consistent first contact.

Whether you're working with developing passers or fine-tuning the serve receive of high-level athletes, this video offers tools, teaching language, and creative variations you can use right away!

57 minutes. 2025.