POULSBO — Outside of North Kitsap quarterback Jared Prince’s nearly 300 yards of passing offense, the Central Kitsap football team had one enemy they just couldn’t contain last Friday night.

Time.

The clock simply ran out on a Cougar comeback late in the fourth quarter, giving North Kitsap its third straight win and dropping Central’s playoffs hopes further into submission.

The Vikings (4-2, 3-1 in league) were also aided Friday night as the Shelton Highclimbers dispatched heavily injured Gig Harbor by a 32-0 score to knock the Tides out of first place. That ties North with Gig Harbor— a team that is NK’s only league loss — and means that if North can beat Shelton when the Highclimbers come to Poulsbo Oct. 29, the Vikings can again reign atop the Narrows’ Bridge League.

But that scenario was nearly averted last Friday, with the Cougs (2-4, 2-2 in league) putting up 19 points in the fourth quarter to give their Poulsbo rivals one heck of a scare.

“(CK) gave us a close game,” Prince said. “We had to fight hard for this one, but it teaches us we can win the close ones.”

North looked to be in command as the Vikings had doubled up CK by a 26-13 score with about nine minutes left. But two deep touchdown passes by CK quarterback Nick LaFontaine later and North’s winning streak was in serious jeopardy.

“Either we got tired and they stepped it up another notch or we stayed the same and they stepped it up,” said the Vikes’ co-captain and the team’s tackles leader Jacob Snell. “But we definitely could’ve played better.”

NK coach Jerry Parrish said the game was a good experience for his gridders, who built up a tremendous amount of confidence beating their arch-rivals South Kitsap last week 62-7.

“After South, our helmets got a little bigger,” Parrish said. “This might have been a wake-up call that we needed.”

The coach said the team will be working this week on one key aspect: tackling. Too many times — especially during the Cougs’ fourth quarter surge — the Vikings couldn’t hang on to make the stops, he said.

Prince added that North needed to put up more points on Central during earlier opportunities in the game.

“We had a chance to bury them early but we let them stay in it and they started to get confidence,” Prince said.

Whatever the reason, the stats again piled up in typical North Kitsap fashion, with Prince throwing for 287 yards and his CK counterpart LaFontaine accounting for 272 of his own. Prince’s usual offense targets — Travis Tobin and Jordan Henry — also packed on the mileage, Tobin going five catches for 181 yards and Henry taking four catches for 63 total yards. But CK wasn’t outdone, with LaFontaine’s two prime receivers in Rick Bearbower (four catches, 154 yards) and Bryce Wentworth (two catches, 41 yards) off to the races several times as well.

North Kitsap drew first blood off a Henry interception that put the Vikes on the Central 35 with 8:54 to go in the first. NK didn’t take long to score, using an inside reverse that baffled the Cougars’ defense for a 28-yard touchdown run to the left side by Tobin.

Central’s first strike came when LaFontaine found Bearbower for a 63-yard score that knotted things at seven apiece. Both teams were held scoreless until NK’s Tobin took things into his own hands. On a short pass from Prince to the right side of the field, Tobin outran virtually every player on the CK defense for a 63-yard score.

The start of the second half saw the Vikes come out strong, putting together an 83-yard drive — complete with a fourth and one play to stay alive and a 47-yard gain off a Prince to Tobin pass — that ended with a 28-yard strike by Prince to Andy Sturza.

The teams would trade scores to start the fourth quarter, with CK’s Daniel Mayfield running one in from 12 yards out and NK’s Henry making a leaping catch for a 40-yard toss from Prince that made the score 26-13 with 9:15 to go into the fourth. A few stops on defense by North and some winding down of the clock would have meant game over.

But that certainly wasn’t how things panned out.

CK quarterback LaFontaine was far from finished, firing two long TD passes, one two Bearbower for 56 yards and one to Daniel Vandatta for 55 yards, that put CK down by only two with 2:10 remaining.

But Central’s on-side kick attempt failed as the ball went out of bounds at the 50-yard line, giving North good field position. CK was drawn off-sides once to give NK a crucial first down and the Vikings were actually aided by a false start call that put them back at a first-down, albeit from farther away.

North Kitsap will host Port Angeles next week. Central Kitsap hosts Bremerton Oct. 15.