JEROMESVILLE — Some sports games have a dry run. You assess the situation and go from there. Hillsdale had no such thing in its lightning-fast 44-12 home win over Black River to open the season.
Early in the first quarter, on their third offensive play of the game, Hillsdale quarterback Kael Lewis, who was starting his first college football game behind center, dropped back and threw a beautiful ball near the sideline that landed right into the hands of wide receiver Holland Young in the end zone for a touchdown. Basically, Young lined up and ran right past the defensive back. This continued throughout the game.
Step for step and step for step, Black River just couldn’t keep up with Hillsdale on Friday night. The Falcons’ vertical game was on point, as wide receivers Young, Brock Bower and Hayden McFadden used their speed on the outside to cause problems for the Pirates as the offense jumped out to a 23-0 lead after the first quarter. At halftime, the Falcons led 44-0 against a Black River team that was the only Ashland County school to win a playoff game last season.
The point is that Black River just couldn’t keep up with Hillsdale’s speed on the outside.
“No, they couldn’t,” said wide receiver/defensive back Brock Bower, who did a lot of damage that night with three touchdowns. “We have a quarterback that’s really good in the pocket, and we have some fast guys and athletes. We have a great scout defense. We ran what they ran in the practice games, and the whole team delivered.”
“I knew their guys weren’t even close to ours,” said quarterback Kael Lewis (more on him in the next few days), who threw five touchdown passes (all in the first half) and had no interceptions. “In my opinion, we have the best guys in the area.”
“One of the things that’s great about our team is that on any given night we have guys that can make plays,” Hillsdale head coach Trevor Cline said. “When you have the opposing defense, you can’t really focus on one guy because there are multiple guys lined up that can make plays.”
In addition to Bower and his three touchdown catches, Young caught two touchdown passes and McFadden scored a touchdown run after an end-around. Speaking of speed, running back Owen Sloan was also solid for the Falcons. The Falcons were one of the best offensive teams in the Ashland/Wayne County area last season and after what they showed in Game 1, they look like that again.
“We have a great passing game,” Bower said. “We’re working on the running game. It’s going to be a great season.”
Twitter/X:@JamesSimpsonII
James Simpson II is a sports reporter for the Ashland Times-Gazette and was recently with the Mansfield News Journal. He is a self-published author and has had the opportunity to interview sports greats such as Bernard Hopkins, Norm Nixon, Vince Dooley, Jimmie Johnson, etc. for articles in various publications. He also produced a pretty cool piece on the late NBA star Wilt Chamberlain.
