As Greenwood transitions under a new regime, there’s one constant the Gators established to start the William Howard era: run it, run it and run it.

Triston Wilson led a balanced run game and the Gators totaled close to 300 yards on the ground. They ran away with a 28-6 win over Warren Central to open the 2018 season Friday at Gator Stadium.

“Ground and pound, that’s what we’re made for,” said Wilson, who rushed for 122 yards and three touchdowns.

Greenwood (1-0) wore down Warren Central (0-1) with ball control in the second half and finished with 292 rushing yards between five players.

Wilson, a 1,000-yard back as a junior, carried the load with 19 carries – averaging 6.4 yards per touch. Senior quarterback Zach Langevin rushed for 61 yards and a touchdown, Mason Wilson had seven carries for 61 yards and Reed Slone added 27 yards on the ground.

That rushing attack and a stout defense helped Greenwood jump out to a 21-0 lead and hold on for Howard’s first win as head coach.

“I like the way our team had adversity throughout the game and responded to it,” Howard said. “We got up to a 21-0 lead and they came back and scored on us and our kids responded defensively and offensively. We moved the ball and kept them out of the end zone from there.”

Looking to end a losing streak that now stretches to 25 games, Warren Central showed flashes of speed with big plays, but still hampered itself with inconsistency.

In his first varsity start, quarterback Xavier Ingram completed seven passes for 126 yards. His 17-yard touchdown run on a scramble to the left gave Warren Central its only score and cut the lead to 21-6 with 3:27 left in the first half.

Xavier Patrick-Brown had 14 rushes for 53 yards, but no other rusher touched the ball more than four times.

“For us to be as dangerous as we possibly can, we have got to have all five guys involved in the offense,” Dragons coach Joel Taylor said. “I think Xavier (Patrick-Brown) does a great job on his job. I thought Ingram did a good job running the ball a couple of times that he did. Our receivers, we still have to get it distributed better to those guys.

“You have to give credit when you’re not successful to the other team. They took away some things and made us go to something we didn’t want to do.”

Wilson got the ball rolling with a 33-yard run on the Gators’ opening drive that set up his goal-line touchdown run less than four minutes into the game.

Midway through the second quarter, he added two more runs of 22 and 12 yards and scored on the latter for the two-touchdown lead.

Warren Central turned it over on the first play of the ensuing drive with the snap sailing over Ingram’s head. Gators linebacker Luke Rhoton recovered the fumble six yards from the end zone and Langevin scored two plays later for the 21-0 lead.

“I think it was a big turning point,” Rhoton said. “We had a lot of momentum going into the game. We backed down a little and we gained it right back. We just kept our foot on the pedal and just kept on going.”

Warren Central responded with an 80-yard drive highlighted by a 25-yard connection from Ingram to KJ Alexander and a facemask penalty that pushed the Dragons into Greenwood territory.

Four straight runs from Patrick-Brown set up Ingram’s scramble for the Dragons’ lone score.

Reed Slone returned the kickoff 68 yards to the 21 and Greenwood nearly scored before halftime, but couldn’t complete a play as time expired at the goal line to either score or call a timeout to set up the field goal attempt.

Greenwood added the final score in the fourth quarter on another Wilson goal-line score for his third touchdown.

“I felt kind of good out there,” Wilson said. “I had my O-line back me up. If it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t be anywhere. I was happy. This is my last year and I want to go all out.”

Having 48 rushes divided between five running backs is the kind of balance Howard said he liked to see from his team in Week 1, but there were plenty of typical first-week mistakes that held back that rushing attack.

“Hopefully we want to keep a balanced attack,” Howard said. “I don’t know how many penalty yards we had but there were several of them. We had some long rushes that were 20, 30-yard rushes and they got called back because of penalties. I’m guessing there were 100 yards of those that got called back.

Warren Central 0 6 0 0 – 6

Greenwood 7 14 0 7 – 28

First quarter

GW – Wilson 1 run (Ben Patterson kick), 8:45

Second quarter

GW – Wilson 12 run (Patterson kick), 5:46

GW – Langevin 3 run (Patterson kick), 5:12

WC – Ingram 17 run (PAT no good), 3:27

Fourth quarter

GW – Wilson 1 run (Patterson kick), 9:32{&end}