A first-round playoff bye didn’t dull the Hastings football team. Touchdowns on its first four drives fueled a 42-20 defeat of visiting Bloomington Kennedy on Saturday in the Class 5A, Section 3 semifinals.

No. 2 seed Hastings (7-2) advances to the section championship game at 7 p.m. Friday at top seed and second-ranked St. Thomas Academy (9-0). Hastings lost to the Cadets in its most recent section final appearance in 2018. St. Thomas Academy also beat the Raiders 41-7 earlier this season.

A Raiders team on a four-game wining streak before the bye kept its edge Saturday.

“No one really cared about having the bye week,” senior quarterback Axel Arnold said. “We came out and made plays. It’s nice to play with a lead because it takes the pressure off.”

Arnold built the lead by tossing a 9-yard touchdown pass to Stephen Reifenberger. And after an incomplete pass from the Hastings’ 21-yard line turned No. 3 seed Bloomington Kennedy (5-5) over on downs, the Raiders’ offense stayed hot.

Arnold and Reifenberger co-authored the second touchdown, this time from 17 yards out. The first quarter ended with Hastings ahead 15-0.

Kennedy, which showed promise on its first drive behind the work of running backs Saide Alassani and Marques Monroe, punted away on its second possession.

Hastings, meanwhile, kept its groove. Senior Brenden Freiermuth busted loose on the drive’s first play for a 30-yard run to the Kennedy 13-yard line. He completed the drive with a 10-yard scoring run and the Raiders led 22-0.

Their fourth touchdown came from a 3-yard Arnold run. Down 29-0, the Eagles didn’t quit — not with more than half the game remaining. And not after beating Two Rivers in the first round for Kennedy’s first playoff victory since 2013.

On the Eagles’ next drive, penalties on Hastings provided 20 yards. Connecting on passes helped the Eagles’ cause, too. Senior quarterback Zachariah Zesch hit Elijah Smith in the slot for 11 yards into Hastings territory. Zesch later found Rayzjon Walker for 21 yards to the 2-yard line. Monroe ran it in from there and Kennedy trimmed its deficit to 29-8.

Zesch and Walker hooked up again, this time from 7 yards out on the Eagles’ first drive of the second half, and the Hastings lead shrank to 29-14. Undaunted, the Raiders answered with an Arnold touchdown run and restored a commanding 21-point lead.

“Credit to Hastings for playing its brand of football,” Kennedy coach Kedrick Williams said. “They didn’t do anything we hadn’t seen on film. We just needed a faster start like they had.”