Jordan Ratcliffe, Delas Raiford and Quinton Sison.

Those are three names Kennedy Catholic, especially quarterback Jason Thompson, don’t want to hear mentioned any time soon.

The Timberline guys will be in the whole JFK team’s nightmares for some time now as the Blazers demolished the Lancers, 51-24, in a preliminary round West Central District football playoff at South Sound Stadium in Olympia Friday night.

Demolished? Ha!

Kennedy played even in this game for all the first half, just a couple strokes of bad luck.

“This team has a lot of heart,” said Bob Bourgette, a Lancers coach now for 30-plus seasons, taking the team to the playoffs continuously in that time. “It’s a good group to be around, a great group of kids. We are blessed. Not as much talent and depth as some years, but it’s not always about wins and losses.”

It was about wins and losses in this game, fairly early on. Not at the beginning as it looked like a coming-quick-loss with Thompson intercepted by Sison the first play of the game. And an ensuing, grinding, 10-play, drive by the undefeated Blazers, winners of the Black Hills League (10-0) and 5th ranked in 3A in the state now, led to a touchdown!

The Lancers’ defense, spearheaded by secondary players like Vince McCluskey, stopped the Blazers short on third down, forcing a 25-yard field goal. It was good for a 3-0 lead.

The Lancers drove again, led by the spirited throwing of Thompson who threw for over 200 yards in this game, including a touchdown, and, got the ball to the 30-yard line of Timberline before an Interception.

Sison stepped in front of another wide receiver. Needless to say, that killed the momentum. And then the Blazers got off a long pass some 50 yards -- half running, half throwing yardage -- to take a 10-0 lead with still 4:06 showing in the first quarter on the red L.E.D. scoreboard, doing well to show the numbers in this constant driving rain at this stadium all game long.

Again, Lancers ball, and this drive with a minute left in the first quarter only went backwards, starting out 1st and 10 but ending on a fourth down field goal, 4 and 23.

“Give credit to them, they made things happen, Timberline is a good team,” said Bourgette.

But his team looked to try to be flipping the table on what happened to them last year in a 3A preliminary round playoff akin to this round’s game. Bourgette’s squad led Liberty, 17-0, through the first half before surrendering 21 points in the second to get eliminated.

Penalties were a lot at fault for those problems against Liberty, but this game was not penalties at all really getting the rap. Nothing more than a couple illegal procedure calls hurt the Lancers enough to mention in this one versus the Blazers. The rap clearly fell on the shoulders of Raiford, Radford and the already mentioned Sison.

But, despite their work, this Lancers team was right there as they followed up the Blazers’ score with one of their own a couple possessions later. The Lancers punted and then L.J. Jennings stripped the ball from a Blazers running back in a big play for the red, dark blue, and white colors school off 144th in Burien.

Then, it was a long bomb from Thompson.

Five plays into the drive, Thompson, a 6-1, 175 pounder, made longtime great strategizing assistants, like Don Hoffman and Dino Josie, jump up in the air, not to mention the 43 players in white dominated shirts on the sideline going crazy. And don’t forget the band, the tuba guys, like Louie Armstrong, swinging their 50-pound tubas around back and forth, music clipped to the brass, blazing out songs like “Wake Me Up before I go-go,” and the majestic trumpet-led symphony of instrument sounds of “The Final Countdown.”

Thompson hit 5-11, 175 wide receiver Darian Brooks on the right side with the ball some 40 yards down the field, in stride, and Brooks ran it in another 19.

Touchdown, Lancers! The crowd, very well in attendance, 60 miles from home, was going great like they just been told, “Ice cream and cake for everyone!”

Now it was 16-7, and the Lancers were coming back.

“We have a lot of heart,” said McCluskey, a junior, who ran hard in this game. “This is a group of Warriors. We never quit.”

But that would be about it, as the Blazers’ Raiford would return the next kickoff with a minute to go until halftime 98 yards for a touchdown.