JEROMESVILLE — There were moments during Friday’s first-round playoff game with visiting Lucas that it seemed like Hillsdale might have slivers of hope after falling behind 21-0 in the first half.
But the Cubs had zero interest in letting things get interesting.
In a rare rematch from Week 2 of the regular season — when the Falcons edged Lucas, 21-17 — the Cubs returned to Hillsdale Community Stadium with ferocity in the trenches and rode their run game to a 28-14 victory.
Limited to just 116 rushing yards in the first meeting with the Falcons (8-3), Lucas more than tripled that total Friday, finishing with 392 yards and all four of its touchdowns on the ground.
“In Week 2 we came out here and we didn’t play together; we pointed fingers,” said Cubs senior running back Logan Toms, who ran for 187 yards and two touchdowns Friday after managing just 58 rushing yards in the first meeting. “In our offense, we have to be together and we have to be communicating. … Tonight we just trusted each other and stayed together.”
The win advanced the Cubs (8-3) into the second round of the Division VII, Region 25 bracket to face No. 5-ranked Dalton (9-1), a 54-12 winner Friday over Conotton Valley.
Hillsdale, meanwhile, ends its season after making its Ashland-area-record eighth consecutive trip to the playoffs.
“They made more plays than we did; we couldn’t stop them,” said Falcons senior quarterback Jack Fickes, who cleared 1,000 passing yards for the season after going 16-of-26 for 131 yards and two touchdowns Friday. “The physicality from them was like, ‘Wow.’ ”
The Falcons had been 3-0 in home playoff games and were 5-0 at home this season, but the Cubs took nearly all the wind out of their sails early Friday.
Toms scored from 36 yards out on Lucas’ first drive, and after a Hillsdale punt, Daniel Hockensmith broke through a pile of bodies in the middle of the field and dashed 88 yards on the first play of the second quarter for a 14-0 lead.
A Falcons fumble followed that, with Toms recovering, and Zach Diehl (14 carries, 69 yards) scored from 2 yards out 12 plays later.
“I just felt tonight they were the more physical team and the more disciplined team,” Hillsdale coach Trevor Cline said. “You know going into this game, every time that we’ve played them the team that makes the least amount of mistakes is going to be the team that wins. Tonight, that was them.”
Despite the big deficit, Fickes hit Hayden McFadden over the middle on fourth down for a 9-yard touchdown — McFadden’s 10th of the season — just before halftime to make it 21-7. Then Hillsdale’s Brady Heller stuffed Toms on fourth down at the HHS 5-yard line midway through the third quarter to reawaken the home crowd.
But the Falcons went three-and-out after that and Toms broke a 44-yard touchdown run on the next offensive play to stretch the lead back out to 21 points.
Hillsdale got within 28-14 midway through the fourth quarter when Fickes connected with Owen Sloan for an 11-yard touchdown, but Lucas chewed up the clock from there.
“We knew we had to be good up front and I thought that’s where we controlled the game tonight, up front on both sides of the ball,” said Cubs coach Scott Spitler, who picked up his 100th win with the program in Week 9.
“We don’t have a league to play for a championship for or a league race,” he added, “so our mindset is we want to earn the right to represent our school and community in the playoffs, so we’re working towards that.”
Hockensmith had multiple key stops in the backfield from his linebacker position, and after giving up 229 rushing yards to the Falcons in their Week 2 matchup the Cubs allowed just 112 on 30 carries Friday. Senior Braylen Jarvis led the hosts on the ground with 40 yards on 10 carries.
“We’re proud of the seniors; they left the program in a better place than they found it,” Cline said. “We haven’t had too many teams that went (8-3).
“They will look back at this at one point and understand what they were able to accomplish throughout this season.”
Lucas, in the playoffs for the 10th year in a row, is 8-1 since an 0-2 start, and its three losses are by a combined 14 points.
The Cubs improved to 12-4 in the postseason since their state runner-up finish in 2019. They met Dalton in the 2021 playoffs when, ironically, it was Lucas carrying the region’s No. 1 seed. Dalton, this year’s No. 1 seed, won that third-round game, 42-23, and will host the Cubs next week.
“We’ve grown throughout the season and we’re playing our best ball when we need to be playing our best ball,” Spitler said.
