The nation's No. 1 recruit went after the nation's most important receiving record on Friday night.
Dorial Green-Beckham with one of his
nine catches for 189 yards and two
TDs in Friday's 56-6 win.
Photo by Sam Soliday
He just didn't go after it perhaps all that hard.
Dorial Green-Beckham, a dominating 6-foot-6, 225-pound senior receiver from
Hillcrest (Springfield, Mo.), needed 251 receiving yards to break the National Federation of High School Sports Record Book of 5,867 career receiving yards set by Abram Booty of Evangel Academy (Shreveport, 1993-96).
By halftime, Green-Beckham had nine catches for 189 yards and two scores. But by that time Hillcrest had a 49-0 lead over over-matched Marshfield (4-5).
Those were the same numbers he finished with as Hillcrest (8-1) cruised to a 56-6 road victory.
Dorial Green-Beckham needs just 62
yards to break the national career
receiving mark set in 1996.
Photo by Sam Soliday
Green-Beckham, who didn't play the second half, will now need just 62 receiving yards to break the mark in next week's regular-season finale at home against Republic.
He has 87 catches for 1,683 yards and 17 touchdowns this season.
"It's kind of the way I wanted to do it for sure," Green-Beckham said by cell phone. "You want to do it in front of your friends and family and student body."
Hillcrest clinched a spot in the Class 4 playoffs with a victory on Friday night.
Green-Beckham had two touchdown receptions before the game was two minutes old.
On the first play from scrimmage, halfback
Jonah Hill took a handoff from quarterback
Matt Futrell and fired a 50-yard TD bomb to Green-Beckham.
Dorial Green-Beckham during pregame
warm-ups.
Photo by Sam Soliday
"We've been working on that play all week," Green-Beckham said. "Their guys bit and I was wide open. It worked to perfection."
Futrell threw a more conventional 29-yard scoring strike to Green-Beckham to make it 14-0 and after another turnover, the 6-foot-6, 225-pound senior took a pitch and ran 27 yards for another score.
The rest of the half, Green-Beckham played primarily decoy. That suited him just fine, though he'll look forward to getting the record out of the way and concentrate on the playoffs.
"That record has been on my mind and focus all week," Green-Beckham said. "And during the game, with each catch I knew I was getting closer and closer. If I got the record tonight, that would have been great. But can't wait to get home and get ready for the playoffs and hopefully get the record on the same night."
Freelance photographer Sam Soliday contributed to this report.
