ARCHBOLD SENIOR … Lexi Ripke hits a serve during Saturday’s four-set win at Hilltop.
PHOTOS BY REBEKAH DELL / THEVILLAGE REPORTER
SATURDAY MORNING VOLLEYBALL … Myah Higgins of Hilltop puts the ball in play in Saturday’s nonleague match.
By: John Fryman
THE VILLAGE REPORTER
john@thevillagereporter.com
WEST UNITY (August 23, 2025) – The Archbold Bluestreaks got the best of Hilltop in a matchup between a pair of defending district volleyball champions from a year ago on Saturday.
Coming off a tough five-set setback to Ayersville two days before, the Streaks got stellar play from their frontcourt and eventually prevailed with a 25-12, 25-20, 22-25, 25-12 victory over the Cadets.
“This is our third game so we’re still working out some kinks,” said Archbold head coach Debbie Culler. “We had a little breakdown in that third set which is good for the girls to work on build momentum again for the fourth set.”
Archbold’s own dominance in the frontcourt was the difference against Hilltop.
Led by a pair of 5-11 seniors in Lexi Ripke and Miley Gericke, the duo created a lot of havoc at the net against the Cadets whose tallest player is six-foot senior middle hitter Brynn Rodriguez.
After falling behind, 6-2, in the first set, Ripke recorded a block along with a pair of kills giving Archbold a 12-9 lead.
Hilltop managed to pull to within three points, 15-12, on an attack by Hayden JoHantgen before Archbold junior Scarlett Brehm gave the Streaks a huge boost at the serving line.
Brehm came off the bench and scored three consecutive serves for a 22-12 lead and Karly Kruse tallied another serve to claim a 25-12 win in the first set. She tallied three aces in the match.
Again, the Cadets jumped to an early lead in the second set, 6-3, on a serve by 5-0 senior libero Brooklyn Kuszmaul.
From there, Archbold would reclaim the lead, 22-18, on an attack and kill by Ripke and Charlee Forward added another attack point to win the second set, 25-20.
In the third set, Hilltop trailed early but managed to get a pair of blocks by junior Myah Higgins enabling the Lady Cadets to post a 25-22 victory.
“We had two matches so far and I think the difference for us like when you play like a larger school or like an Archbold, they have multiple hitters,” said Hilltop head coach Janice Bruner.
“I go from a six-footer to a 5-7 or a 5-5, so that looks very different than our first couple of matches. So, I was happy in the third set that we were able to come back and take that one.
“Even in the fourth, we were really far behind, but we continued to play hard and got the ball back and we made some good plays. We need to work on our serve receive and attack first.”
Hilltop’s inexperience in the frontcourt unfortunately showed in the fourth set as Archbold took advantage of its own net play with 6-1 junior Kennedy Hurst, 5-9 freshman Molly Harris along with Ripke leading the way in dominating fashion with a 25-12 win and improving to 2-1 overall on the season.
Ripke and Hurst led the Streaks frontcourt dominance with 13 and 12 kills respectively. Gericke added eight kills, Harris had seven kills. Kruse recorded four aces.
“We weren’t able to run our middles in the first three sets and that made a big difference,” said Culler. “We got Kennedy (Hurst) involved in the fourth set and it makes an impact.
“Using her (Hurst) in the middle helped us in that fourth set. We had good passing that we could run our middle.”
And with the Northwest Ohio Athletic League opener on the horizon at Liberty Center, Culler says there is room for improvement.
“We don’t click as a team right now and we’re working on that,” said the Archbold mentor. “Hilltop is always a good squad and it’s always fun to play them. You never know what to expect because they’re always scrappy. So that’s good for us.”