JEROMESVILLE – Hopes were high Friday night that Ashland County’s “Backyard Brawl” rivalry game between Hillsdale and Loudonville could bring some suspense between two unbeaten teams.
The Falcons, however, showed their talent and moxie is still soaring after a trip to the Division VII state championship game a year ago.
Hillsdale quarterback Kael Lewis hit four different receivers – including his brother, Knox Lewis – for touchdown passes and the HHS defense shut out its opponent in the first half for the third straight week in a 35-14 rout.
The Falcons now are 3-0 for the third consecutive season and seventh time since 2015, holding the upstart Redbirds (2-1) to just a pair of fourth-quarter touchdowns.
Running back Owen Sloan also ripped off 212 yards on 22 carries – a big chunk of those coming on his 67-yard touchdown run up the left sideline in the fourth quarter.
“Loudonville had a great game plan of just taking their time and trying to slow the game down; it took us out of rhythm a little bit,” Hillsdale head coach Trevor Cline said.
“We had a game like that against Smithville last year and that helped us out tremendously the rest of the year, so this was the type of game we needed.”
The victory was the first without a running clock this season for Hillsdale, and it helped soften the loss of wide receiver Hayden McFadden.
The senior reeled in a 19-yard pass from Lewis for the game’s first touchdown, but suffered a leg injury two minutes later while on defense and needed to be helped off the field.
McFadden, a speedster who broke the program record for career receptions in Week 1 at Black River, was in street clothes for the second half.
Despite being without his favorite target, Lewis still finished 16-of-21 through the air for 197 yards and additional receiving touchdowns to Knox Lewis (10 yards), Kyle Turk (29 yards) and Brock Bower (20 yards).
The first career varsity touchdown for Knox Lewis capped a 17-play, 76-yard drive that represented the only points of the second quarter.
“We knew we weren’t gonna get things all in one play with (McFadden) gone, and it was going to be some longer drives,” Kael Lewis said. “But I like having to drive the field, too.”
“It was pretty much just about taking care of business here,” he said.
Knox Lewis finished his night with five catches for a game-high 85 yards receiving while also contributing big for a Hillsdale defense that allowed just 40 yards to LHS in the first half.
Bower chipped in four catches for 36 yards.
“It was great getting Knox and Brock involved in the pass game tonight,” Cline said. “When you have multiple guys like that who are in coverage and hard to defend, that only helps us.”
The Falcons led 28-0 before Loudonville got on the board to open the fourth quarter with a 3-yard run from Braylon Kauffman (11 carries, 40 yards).
But the runaway game could have had a much different tone had a few penalties not hindered the Redbirds early on.
In the first quarter, Loudonville got a big kickoff return from Collin Caley to start a drive inside Hillsdale territory. The Redbirds advanced to the HHS 18-yard line, but a 15-yard penalty set them up with a second-and-25, and quarterback Chayse Wright was intercepted by Falcons linebacker Brady Heller on a tipped pass.
A score there could have tied the game at 7-7. Instead, Loudonville didn’t advance into Hillsdale territory again until late in the third quarter.
“You can’t leave points on the field against these guys and we left points right there,” said second-year LHS head coach Ed Honabarger, who had Loudonville off to a 2-0 start for the first time in a decade. “Maybe that makes it (interesting). … We really needed that.”
Then late in the second quarter, with the Falcons trying to finish off their 17-play odyssey of a scoring drive, the Redbirds jumped offside on fourth-and-3 at the LHS 10-yard line.
That penalty gave Hillsdale a first down and set up the Lewis-to-Lewis scoring strike two plays later.
Cline said he would have opted for a field goal there with kicking dynamo AJ Brown (now 16-for-16 on kicks this season), but the first down opened the door.
The Falcon defense, meanwhile, didn’t let Loudonville’s run-heavy offense get going.
The Redbirds were averaging 370 yards a game after running-clock wins over Mapleton and Richmond Heights. But they mustered just 108 rushing yards on 29 carries in Jeromesville.
Wright scored the game’s final touchdown on a 1-yard plunge in the fourth and was a modest 6-of-9 for 41 yards passing, with 34 of those coming on four completions to Dakota Wright.
“The defense just takes film real seriously and we’re just trying to lock it down,” Heller said. “We want to move as one, have every guy get to the football. … We’re really jelling right now on defense.”
“Overall, our defense has played extremely well and we were pretty confident coming into this season that our defense would take that next step,” Cline added. “We were looking forward to that.”
Loudonville heads to East Knox (0-3) to open Knox Morrow Athletic Conference action next week. The Bulldogs are the lone winless team in the KMAC after a 42-18 defeat against Colonel Crawford on Friday.
Honabarger hopes his squad can get back on the winning track after a huge hurdle at Hillsdale.
“We knew it was an uphill climb coming in here; they’ve got everybody back from state runners-up,” he said. “We had to have our A++ game and we only had about a C game tonight.”
“But our older kids have done a nice job of working hard, staying on everybody and buying into everything we’re doing this year,” he said.
The Falcons, meanwhile, will be at home for the third week in a row next Friday when they host Chippewa (0-3) to kick off Wayne County Athletic League play. The Chipps were a 31-0 loser to Coventry in Week 3.