BY DEAN FOX • DNJ CORRESPONDENT • September 4, 2010

LA VERGNE — In completely different ways Friday night, Riverdale's Dillon Woodruff and La Vergne's Landon Grooms made their impact.

Woodruff kept using his legs. Grooms kept using his arm.

In the end, Woodruff's way was more effective. The sophomore quarterback ran for 191 yards and three touchdowns as the visiting Warriors beat La Vergne 34-0 in the District 7-AAA opener.

Riverdale's Adam Davenport ran for another 122 yards, and the Warrior offense rolled up 416 as a team — all but five on the ground.

"They were biting hard on the fake going that way," Woodruff said, "and the line did a good job blocking. It was working all night, so we just kept doing it."

Grooms, a senior, passed for 281 yards. But the Wolverines (1-2, 0-1) never broke through.

"We were able to move the ball, but we bogged down inside the red zone," La Vergne coach Stanton Stevens said. "Our run game isn't good enough yet to where we can use our run game to punch the ball in the end zone."

"We had a hard time getting them off the field," Riverdale coach Ron Aydelott said, "but we kept them out of the end zone. Offensively, we did some good things. We sputtered a couple of times, but it wasn't too bad."

Woodruff's first touchdown came on his first keeper, a 26-yarder on third-and-1 that culminated the first Warrior possession.

But after Riverdale (3-0, 1-0) was stopped on downs on its next drive, Woodruff's penchant for the keeper came to the forefront. On a third-and-8, he picked up 24. On fourth-and-6, he gained another 11. Two plays later, he ran for a 13-yard score, then added the two-point conversion to make it 14-0.

Grooms made his mark a completely different way.

He threw the ball 42 times, completing 24. More of a quarter of those attempts came on the opening drive, an 11-play march to Riverdale's 20 before the Warriors stopped them on downs.

La Vergne's final possession of the first half went to the Riverdale 12, but four incompletions and a personal foul penalty kept the Wolverines off the scoreboard.

The Riverdale offense — which had 200 yards in the first half — put the game away in the first four minutes of the second half. Woodruff had a 63-yard touchdown run and Davenport added a 40-yard score moments later to make it 27-0.

"It means a lot to win the first district game like this," Woodruff said.

Grooms led another drive, but his fourth-and-goal scramble came up short when he was tackled at the Riverdale 2. It was the third time the Wolverines got in the red zone, but Riverdale thwarted them every time.