For almost every minute of Friday’s night football game, the Seneca defense held All-State wide receiver Dorial Green-Beckham in check.
That is, except for the last 50 seconds, and that proved to be the difference in the game as Hillcrest won 20-15.
Green-Beckham caught a pass and ran 66 yards for the game-winning score for his only touchdown of the game. The standout receiver had seven catches for 137 yards, but didn’t really hurt the Indians until the final minute of the game.
Prior to that score, Seneca drove down the field and scored to take the lead.
“We played with a lot of heart and a lot of emotion last night,” Seneca coach Rob Townsend said Saturday afternoon. “We didn’t always play well, but we always played hard. We definitely won the time of possession battle. We had a lot of long drives and ate off the clock. Our goal was to keep them out of their hands. We knew they had two or three kids that could hurt us.”
Seneca scored its first touchdown in the first quarter thanks to a long drive that ended with Allen Frost scoring on a 38-yard touchdown.
Hillcrest had the next two scores of the game to build a lead. Three minutes into the second quarter, Donovan Mathis scored a 5-yard touchdown run.
Tied 7-7, Hillcrest took the lead in the third quarter on a 90-yard touchdown pass from Matt Futrell to Jeremy Coleman.
The Indians trailed by a touchdown until late in the fourth quarter before scoring and taking the lead. With just under two minutes to go in the game, Seneca got on the board with a touchdown run by quarterback Jake Rhoades from 1-yard out. On the two-point conversion, Frost ran it in to give Seneca a 15-14 lead.
Frost finished with 217 yards rushing, a good chunk of Seneca’s 250 yards on the ground. On defense, Eric Esposito had two interceptions. Dalton Lindsey had nine tackles and Hank Whitehead had eight stops.
Seneca plays at home against Nevada at 7 p.m. Friday.
