HILMAR — Hilmar volleyball coach Patti Harris was lost in thought, leaning against the north wall of the Strom Gymnasium, her thumb and forefinger pinching the bridge of her nose. 

“What’s the word I’m looking for,” she said, following her team’s 25-17, 25-22, 25-19 Trans-Valley League loss Tuesday to front-running Ripon. “Scrappy.”

True enough, the Yellowjackets were scrappy, but in the end their scrap was no match for the defending TVL champions’ might.

“We were keeping up with them, trying to play scrappy, and the first couple of games I thought we were doing pretty good,” said Harris, now in her 16th year as Hilmar’s head coach. “Ripon’s a pretty strong team and going into it, we knew they were going to be tough. The TVL’s tough.”

The Yellowjackets, 15-7 overall and now 4-2 in league action, entered the contest having suffered their first TVL setback last week at the hands of Hughson, putting them one game back of Ripon in the standings. While Tuesday’s game couldn’t be classified as a must-win, a victory would’ve squared the teams’ league marks and given Hilmar an early advantage with a head-to-head victory. Now, however, the Yellowjackets trail Ripon (17-1, 6-0) by two games.

“We watched film and developed a strategy, but they’ve got some hitters that are very good, and hit around the block, and do some things with the ball,” said Harris, who owns a career record of 370-177-3. “But you can’t succeed unless you fail, and I tell the girls that you have to learn from your losses, fix what you need to fix, and move forward.”

Individually for Hilmar, Stella Pires had 23 assists, while Teygan Horstmeier finished with 13 digs. Finley Rosa totaled seven kills, to go along with five ace serves, and Emma Gomes had two blocks.

Adriana Dorn was the standout for the Ripon, finishing with a team-high 19 kills and two blocks, in addition to three digs.

“I told the girls that we’re going to have to make sure we keep working hard, because you can’t take any team lightly,” said Ripon coach Greg Soliz. “We expected Hilmar to give us their best. Right now, everyone is going to come at us with their best, and we just have to expect that.”

Soliz said the key to Ripon’s success was in the serve-and-pass game.

“If we can serve tough and get teams out of system, that’s where we’re going to win our games,” said Soliz. “We’re not very big, so we’ve got to be good with the serve-and-pass, and that’s what we’ve focused on all year.”

Ripon, the Sac-Joaquin Section Division 4 runner-up last season to rival Ripon Christian, will see action again on Thursday when it travels to take on Hughson, which had a league bye Tuesday.

The Yellowjackets will travel to face Ripon Christian on Thursday at 6 p.m.