Reflecting on what was a memorable 2021 campaign for the Owatonna football team

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By JON WEISBROD I OwatonnaFootball.com

The unforgettable — albeit heartbreaking — loss in the Section 1-5A championship game against Rochester Mayo fittingly encapsulated the entire season for the Owatonna football team.

The early hole; the comeback; the adversity; the inspiring late push; the ups; the downs; the drama — it was all there.

And just as they had refused to throw in the towel on numerous occasions throughout the rigorous grind of the regular season, the Huskies rose to the occasion in the 11th hour and executed a stretch of downright rousing play to rejuvenate the entire team on Saturday night.

In an appropriate finale that saw Owatonna back on the stage where it all began on the turf at Spartan Stadium in Rochester, the previous two-and-a-half months merged with the electrifying action on the field as the Huskies found themselves with a 33-32 lead early in the fourth quarter against the No. 6-ranked Spartans in game that had featured four lead-changes up to that point.

Following the seemingly fixed narrative of the overall campaign, the final chapter didn’t transpire the way the Huskies would have liked, but didn’t lack the stirring ingredients that made the previous nine games so memorable. Ultimately, Owatonna put itself in position to win late in the fourth quarter, but saw its upset bid thwarted when Jacob Ginskey’s fourth down pass deep in Mayo territory was intercepted in the end zone with 61 seconds left on the clock.

And just like that, it was over. There would be no more valiant performances. No more comebacks. No more courageous efforts to pull themselves up from the dirt. No more practices. No more games.

The prevailing sentiment that lingered on Saturday night featured a blend of powerful, yet conflicting, emotions that inevitably strike after such a defeat. Amidst the initial heart ache, there was a faint sense of pride, yes. The Huskies had just pushed one of the best teams in Class 5A to the absolute brink and executed one of their finest offensive game plans in quite some time.

But they lost. And with no more games to prepare for, all OHS head coach Jeff Williams could do in the immediate aftermath of the contest was reflect and attempt to contextualize what had just transpired over the previous 48 minutes, and the previous 11 weeks.

 “There was adversity and we pulled ourselves out of the fire a couple times,” he said roughly 20 minutes after the game with the initial buzz of the stadium having subsided and only a small handful of OHS players and coaches still lingering near the north end zone. “The first three weeks were rocky. We were one and two with a two-point win over Century and we were wondering if there was a way that we were going to pull the whole thing together, and then we did.

“And then we had a massive hiccup against New Prague,” Williams continued, referring to a 27-0 loss to the Trojans on the road in Week 7. “That could have been the death knell for this operation, but they came together and played well down the stretch and beat a good Kasson team (in Week 8); beat a good Northfield team (in the section semifinals) and had this Mayo team on the ropes.”

Indeed, the Huskies could have, and probably should have, fallen apart in the wake of a 42-0 blowout loss to No. 1-ranked Mankato West that dropped the team below .500 for the first time since 2016 when Owatonna similarly started with two losses in three games to open the season.

But they kept it together. They got back to work the following Monday and began preparing for a Week 4 showdown against Austin at home, a pivotal contest that would ultimately serve as the catalyst for a dominant three-game stretch where the Huskies out-scored the Packers, Northfield and Rochester John Marshall by a combined score of 118-14.

On Saturday, they could have said “here we go again” and backed down after the Spartans pounced on a fumble early in the first quarter and took a 6-0 lead a few minutes later. But they didn’t, and proceeded to ring up 23 unanswered points in a prevailing 14-minute stretch that lasted deep into the second quarter.

Late in the regular season, Owatonna could have lost all its mojo following an embarrassing loss to New Prague and succumbed to the elements against a future section champion on a quick turnaround in Week 8. But they didn’t, and took the field with just two full practices of preparation and defeated state-ranked Kasson-Mantorville, 17-14, in a downpour to secure the program’s 15th consecutive winning season.

On Saturday, Owatonna could have folded when Mayo stormed back to grab a 26-23 lead after Jamal Beale scooped a fumble and ran into the end zone for a touchdown on the third play of the second half. But they didn’t, and responded by out-scoring Mayo 10-6 over the next 10 minutes to build its final lead of the game at 33-32 on a booming 39-yard field goal by Drew Henson at the 9:15-mark of the fourth quarter. 

Somehow, through the literal and figurative storm of the season, the Huskies held it together and finished just six points shy of capturing their sixth consecutive section championship and eighth state tournament berth in 10 seasons.

According to Williams, the chief reason the 2021 team was able to overcome the barrage of obstacles throw in their direction circles directly back to the players, and specifically the tight-knit group of seniors captained by Grant Achterkirch, Nick Williams and Eli Spurgeon.

“The seniors just wouldn’t let that happen,” Williams said about the possibility of the season falling apart. “They showed great leadership. They were the glue that kept it all together, because we were playing a lot of young kids. But our seniors were the glue. They made sure the kids had a good practice every day. We stayed disciplined and kept our noses clean and out of trouble and there for the games on Friday nights.”

Moving forward, the immediate future is unquestionably bright for the program, but what else is new? With half of Owatonna’s 22 starting positions in Saturday’s consisting of juniors and sophomores, and the sub-varsity teams (freshman and B-Squad) having combined for a 12-2 record against district opponents this fall, there’s a better-than-decent chance the Huskies will be right back in the section title game in 2022.

But for more than 90% of the 17 seniors, football is over, period. The college game is an ultra-competitive environment and only the upper-echelon of players even receive vague interest from the next level. For 100%, though, their time as an Owatonna Husky has come to an end, offering a jarring reminder to the litany of returning players that high football school is fleeting. Only two state Class 5A championships have been handed out since the current 12th-graders concluded their freshman seasons at OHS — Owatonna in 2018 and Chaska in 2019 — and one needs to look no further than the pandemic-condensed 2020 season to appreciate this notion at an even deeper level.

With almost a week having passed since the season-ending loss to the Spartans, it’s now an appropriate time time to look back at the 2021 campaign while respectfully peaking ahead at 2022.

THE 2021 OWATONNA HUSKIES

Captains: Nick Williams, Grant Achterkirch, Eli Spurgeon

Seniors (17): Lane Wagner, Dylan Maas, Nick Williams, Max Dixon, Luke Wottreng, Kaven Torabpour, Taylor Bogen, Grant Achterkirch, Cael Dowling, Caleb Vereide, Eli Knutson, Ryley Glassmaker, Isaac Peterson, Alec Jarvis, Aiden Stowe, Eli Spurgeon, Reid Stauffer

Big Southeast District record: 6-4

Red Division record: 4-3 (4th of 8)

Regular season wins: Rochester Century (16-14); Austin (51-7); Northfield (26-7); Rochester John Marshall (41-0); No. 8AAAA Kasson-Mantorville (17-14)

Regular season losses: No. 6AAAAA Rochester Mayo (58-31); No. 1 AAAAA Mankato West (42-0); New Prague (27-0)

Postseason record: 1-1 (W, Northfield 33-7 in section semifinals; L, Rochester Mayo 38-33 in section championship)

Longest winning streak: 3 games (Weeks 4-6)

Overall PPG/PPG allowed: 24.8/21.4

Leading passer: Jacob Ginskey 59-for-112, 780 yards, 11 TD, 9 INT (8 games/7 starts)

Leading rusher: Dylan Maas 991 yards, 9 TD

Leading receiver: Nick Williams 35 receptions, 559 yards, 6 TD

Defensive leaders: Grant Achterkirch 75 tackles (51 solo); Drew Kretlow/Ryley Glassmaker 4 sacks; Collin Vick 2 interceptions; Owen Beyer 5 pass deflections; Cael Dowling 2 forced fumbles; 3 players 2 fumble recoveries

THE 2022 OWATONNA HUSKIES

Captains: TBD (will be announced on Dec. 12)

Projected returning starters (6 O; 5 D; 1 PK): Jacob Ginskey QB; Ayden Walter WR; Carter Johnson WR; Mikah Elstad OL; Austin Risser OL; Trevor Schirmer OL; Owen Beyer DB; Collin Vick DB; Conner Grems LB; Drew Kretlow LB; Trevor Schmirmer DL; Drew Henson PK 

Other projected impact returners: Ethan Anderson OL/DL; Noah Wellnitz DB/KR; Caleb Hollupeter WR; Grant Lower DL/OL; Torrin Smith OL/LB; Mitch Seykora RB/LB; Isaac Miller OL

Around the league: District champion and top-ranked, Mankato West, will graduate a massive senior class this offseason and will almost certainly take a step back next fall, but that doesn’t mean the Scarlets won’t be dangerous, because they absolutely will. But the reality remains that Mankato West enters the state tournament with more seniors in its starting lineup (18) than Owatonna has on its entire roster (17).

The team that eliminated the Huskies and finished second in the Big Southeast, Rochester Mayo, will also gave some serious retooling to do next season as it graduates three of the best players at their respective positions to ever come through the program in quarterback Bennett Ellsworth, receiver Cayden Holcomb and running back Noah Smith.

On paper, Northfield looks like it will be back in the mix for the district title next year as the Raiders have a potential all-district quarterback in current junior Soren Richardson and will roll back several complementary weapons to create a formidable offensive arsenal. The Raiders, though, have struggled to matchup in the trenches from a raw physical standpoint in recent years and will need to find a way to shore things up on the lines in order to truly take a step forward.

New Prague put together one of its best seasons in recent memory this fall and did so using a roster overflowing with juniors and sophomores, so the Trojans could ultimately be the team that everyone will be chasing in 2022.

The way, way, way, way too early 2022 Big Southeast District Power Rankings (2021 record)

1. Mankato West (10-0)*
2. Owatonna (6-4)
3. New Prague (7-3)
4. Rochester Mayo (9-1)*
5. Northfield (4-6)
6. Rochester Century (4-6)
7. Rochester John Marshall (1-8)
8. Austin (1-8)

*-still playing