North Kitsap football will return to the state playoffs as one of the top teams again after defeating Renton 53-0 Nov. 4.

The Vikings scored 23 of their points in the first quarter.

“We just challenged them to start off hot and take their will,” coach Jeff Weible said. “Once we got up a little bit, we let our foot off the gas and stopped playing hard. We had too many penalties and made many mental mistakes.”

After a couple of touchdowns from running back Benen Lawler and a receiving touchdown by Logan Sloman, North Kitsap’s offense began hurting itself.

The Vikings allowed Renton to recover an onside kick after scoring a safety. In addition, Renton struck up a drive into North Kitsap’s side of the field after a couple of personal foul penalties.

Lastly, the Vikings only scored three points in the second quarter because of several holding calls.

“We haven’t done that all year, and I told them at halftime that was uncharacteristic,” Weible said. “We will look at the film and see what really happened and a lot of unforced mistakes that we got to clean up.”

The Vikings bounced back in the second half when Cole Edwards ran into the endzone a couple of times to boost the lead. North Kitsap scored one final time when Cohen Meis returned a late interception to the end zone.

“You play an opponent like them tonight and know that once you are up by 21 or so, the game is probably over with how our defense plays,” Weible said. “But we have to keep playing until it’s over. We have one week seasons now so we have to clean that stuff up.”