JEROMESVILLE – Before making the first varsity start of his Hillsdale High School football career last year, Kael Lewis went out for a bite to eat with former Falcons quarterback Jack Fickes.
When talk arose of his upcoming season-opener against Black River, the sophomore wasn’t lacking in confidence.
“I told him, ‘I’m gonna set the single-game record (for touchdown passes),’” Lewis recalled Monday with a laugh. “I don’t think he really believed me. He said something like, ‘It’s a little bit harder than you think.’”
That Friday night, Lewis had his first touchdown less than a minute after kickoff and captured the Hillsdale record with six TD tosses before halftime in a 44-12 rout.
It’s not a stretch to say few high school football careers have started off more astonishingly.
“It’s weird to think about because, after that happened, it’s like, ‘Oh, this is gonna happen all the time,’ but that’s not how it works,” said Lewis, who finished that night 9-of-13 for 238 yards through the air to help hand Black River its biggest margin of defeat all season. “But it was cool to have that in my first game to set the tone.
“I was a little bit nervous going into that game because I felt like I had to let everyone know how good I am. It was almost like proving to myself how good I am.”
Still only a junior, Lewis might not have anything left to prove.
Last Friday at Waynedale – 23 varsity starts into his career – he seized the HHS record for career passing yards (now 4,393 and counting), surpassing 2018 graduate Trey Williams (4,222).
A week before that in a home game with Smithville, he claimed the school record for career passing touchdowns (now 53 and counting). Williams had 48.
The 6-foot-2, 185-pound Lewis is 21-2 as a starter for the Falcons. He has followed an epic sophomore season during which he steered Hillsdale to the Division VII state championship game with a junior campaign that has been even more impressive.
“I remember watching him grow up (in youth football),” eighth-year Falcons head coach Trevor Cline said. “… Things change, but you could sorta tell that – when he did get to high school and became a sophomore – he was going to have an opportunity to be a starter for us.
“It was the best that I’ve seen anyone throw the football at the junior high level since I’ve been coaching.”
Lewis hit the ground running on varsity despite missing half his freshman season on JV with a broken collarbone.
In Week 5 last fall, he set the school’s single-game record for passing yards, throwing for 361 in a 35-31 win over a Dalton team that made the Division VI regional finals.
In the five playoff games leading up to the state championship, Lewis was 66-of-100 through the air for 1,136 yards, 15 touchdowns and three interceptions.
He completed not one, but two Hail Mary touchdown passes in Hillsdale’s 50-48, miracle win over Malvern in the regional semifinals.
That night was his favorite memory to date on a football field.
Then Lewis accounted for all four Falcon touchdowns – two passing, two rushing – a few weeks later in a comeback, 25-22 win over Danville in the Final Four.
Tom Williams, who won 98 games as Hillsdale’s head coach for 15 years through the 2017 season and returned in 2024 as Cline’s offensive coordinator, said he knew Lewis would be one of the best Falcons ever.
“He was great from Day 1 last year,” Williams said. “His arm talent is as good as there is for high school; he can make all the throws, he’s very accurate and he makes a lot of good decisions with the ball.”
Like many of the best to do it, Lewis has been a quarterback since the first time he wore a football helmet.
When he set the school record last year for single-season passing yards, he was the first to even clear 2,000 at Hillsdale – let alone reach 3,053.
A lot of it came while throwing to receivers Hayden McFadden (1,369 yards, 18 TDs receiving) and Holland Young (981 yards, 9 TDs), who both broke the school standard with more than 60 receptions.
Lewis totaled 35 touchdown passes (another HHS record) and had a completion rate of 64 percent (185-for-290) by the time the Falcons closed out their 14-2 campaign.
It was the most wins in a season for one team in the history of Ashland-area football, and by most standards, it was the best sophomore season for any quarterback in area history as well.
Record-setting numbers aside, not many 10th-graders lead their team to a state final.
“I’ve always loved throwing the ball,” Lewis said. “… I couldn’t imagine not having the ball in my hands every single play.”
I couldn’t imagine not having the ball in my hands every single play.
Hillsdale junior quarterback kael lewis
“He got a lot of confidence last year,” Cline added. “When you’re a sophomore and you get to play 16 games and in a lot of big-time games, now, the moment’s not gonna be too big for him.”
All of it helped set up what became the most highly anticipated season in the more than six decades of Hillsdale football this year.
Lewis and the Falcons have more than delivered.
At 7-0 and ranked fourth in the Associated Press Division VII state poll, they are the last remaining unbeaten team in Region 27 and will make the playoffs for an area-record 10th consecutive season.
The Hillsdale offense has scored at least 31 points in its first seven games for likely the first time in program history, while the first-team defense has allowed just 10 points so far. (The Falcons are outscoring their opponents 179-3 in the first half.)
The offense’s numbers would be even more bloated had the varsity team been on the field more. With so many blowout wins (no team has finished within 20 points of the Falcons), Hillsdale has spread out varsity snaps among more players, creating more depth while keeping legs fresher.
“Last year (the starters) definitely played the second half a lot more, which is more enjoyable because you’re playing more,” Lewis said. “But it’s kind of nice because we know at the end of last year we were battling injuries.”
“Our depth for the line and receivers is what has helped us the most,” he said. “The gap between our 1s and 2s is way smaller than it was last year.”
For his part this season, Lewis has been a model of efficiency. His accuracy has climbed to 74 percent (87-of-118 for 1,328 yards) and his first interception didn’t come until last week.
He said his goal was to get to 20 touchdown passes before throwing a pick, and he nearly did it, throwing 18 to a combined six different receivers.
“Throwing 74 percent with 18 touchdowns to just one interception, you don’t see that at the high school level very much,” Cline said. “It’s a credit to him and the amount of film he watches each week with the team and by himself to get prepared for a game.”
Throwing 74 percent with 18 touchdowns to just one interception, you don’t see that at the high school level very much.
hillsdale head coach trevor Cline on Kael Lewis’s 2025 stats
Cline also credited coach Williams for his guidance. He said it’s nice having one of the best football coaches in area history calling plays for Lewis and the offense.
Williams said Lewis has made the job easier.
“Even some of his big plays last year (were a little riskier), where he was putting the ball in jeopardy,” Williams said. “This year, very rarely does that happen.
“He trusts his receivers, and he should, because they’re really good. He doesn’t have to be a risk-taker for us to have success offensively, and he’s really learned that.”
McFadden again has been the shining star of the receiving corps, turning in 19 catches for 393 yards (20.7 yards per catch) and six touchdowns.
But the senior missed more than two and a half games due to a leg injury, which allowed Lewis to get into an even better rhythm with receivers Kyle Turk (20 catches, 296 yards, 4 TDs), Brock Bower (15 catches, 253 yards, 3 touchdowns) and his twin brother, Knox Lewis (21 catches, 283 yards, 3 TDs).
Turk and Bower have been two big contributors each of the last two seasons for the Falcons, and Lewis said the connection with his brother has been a long time coming.
The two were always linking up for scores in youth football, but didn’t connect for a varsity touchdown until after McFadden was injured in Week 3.
“Having a twin brother, it’s hard to get much closer than that,” Kael said. “We go down to the field all the time to work out and we just have a very good bond that definitely carries over to the games.
“But there are so many guys, this whole senior group, the juniors, it just feels like a brotherhood. I think that’s what helped us so much last year, and when playoffs come this year, we’re just not gonna want to stop playing.”
The Falcons have a few more things to check off the list before the postseason, where they almost certainly will have a first-round bye before hosting a second-round game in the newly restructured 12-team regional format.
They’re still in search of the first 10-0 regular season in program history, and despite all their achievements over the last decade, they haven’t won a Wayne County Athletic League title since 2014.
That year also was the last time they managed to beat perennial conference powerhouse Norwayne, which looms in a Week 10 road game this year.
The Bobcats (5-2, 4-0) trounced Hillsdale 45-21 last fall to take the league crown and will be the only thing stopping the Falcons from their second-ever outright WCAL title (2010) if they can beat Northwestern (1-6, 1-3) and Rittman (5-2, 2-2) the next two weeks.
“Everyone’s kind of put this expectation on us, favoring us to beat Norwayne,” Lewis said, “but those rankings mean nothing because we haven’t beaten them (since 2014).”
Then, of course, there’s the colossal elephant in the room.
Hillsdale was blown out 74-0 in last season’s state title game by Marion Local, a program now riding a state-record 71-game win streak – the longest active streak in the nation.
The Falcons went into that game extremely banged up, with seven of their starters – including record-breaking running back Owen Sloan (currently 3,897 career rushing yards) – either limited or not able to play at all.
Lewis was intercepted five times by the Flyers (he threw just nine picks in his other 15 games combined last year), and he said the humbling defeat has overshadowed much of what Hillsdale accomplished in 2024.
“If I’m being honest, I think about that game once or twice a week; it’s just living rent-free in my head right now,” Lewis said. “The entire off-season I would re-watch the game every time I lifted.
“(The Flyers are) almost like robots – they know where they’re gonna go every single play and we need to get to that level.”
Marion graduated 18 seniors from last year’s team, but that means little for a program that has won more state titles (15) – all of them since 2000 – than any other school in Ohio history.
“The Marion game was a lot for all of us to learn,” Cline said. “… Kael is using that game for motivation and will be someone who knows he’s gonna do everything he can to give himself the opportunity to play for a state championship again.”
There is a long way to go before that opportunity could present itself, and it’s possible Hillsdale could meet the Flyers in the state semifinals if the OHSAA sets the matchups that way.
Until then, Lewis will try to further expand on an eye-popping career he plans to take to the college level.
He has some upcoming unofficial gameday visits to Cincinnati, Miami (Ohio) and Ashland, and has attended a few scouting camps over the years as well.
Lewis said the pace of colleges asking for his film has picked up this year, and he’s open to playing at any level right now if the fit is right.
“I try not to really think about that,” he said. “I (do some of the necessary social media things), but you only need one (offer), so whatever happens, happens.”
Between his improved footwork, mechanics, arm strength and speed (Lewis said he’s been hand-timed at 4.55 in the 40-yard dash), Williams thinks more and more next-level interest is imminent.
“Some college is going to really like what they get,” Williams said. “He just has a grit and a toughness.
“He’s the best quarterback we’ve had. … When you start breaking career records halfway through your junior year, that’s pretty special stuff.”