Just when the Owatonna football team thought the scar tissue from last season’s ugly loss to New Prague had fully-healed, the Trojans opened a whole new set of wounds and sent the Huskies reeling into a short week with its recent three-game winning streak suddenly feeling like little more than a distant and fading memory.

Objectively, the 9-point margin on Thursday night was far closer than last season’s four-touchdown rout in New Prague, but the base ingredients the Trojans used to cook up the victory were strikingly similar to 2021 and tasted just as bitter to the Huskies.

As it did 363 days prior, New Prague hamstrung the Huskies with its ball-control offense — this time consuming more than nine minutes pf clock and scoring on the first drive of the game — and imposed its will up front in the first half.

When OHS finally started showing life on offense, it was once again a series of unfortunate turnovers that beset the Huskies and ultimately spelled doom for the second straight season.

“They’ve certainly given us trouble,” Owatonna coach Jeff Williams said just moments after the game.

Perhaps the most difficult part to swallow in the immediate aftermath of the loss that put the program’s 17-year run of finishing above .500 in serious jeopardy was the fact that no amount of rationalization will be able ease the burden of defeat like it could have after Owatonna’s previous two that came against defending state champion, Mankato West, and No. 8-ranked Rochester Mayo.

Instead, the Huskies woke up Friday morning forced to confront the harsh reality that comes after losing to a team that had played the exact same opponents over the previous month-and-a-half but had mustered one fewer victory, managed 11 fewer points per game on offense and surrendered almost seven more points on defense.

But none of that mattered when the lights come on Thursday night. New Prague came out of the gates and executed with a confidence that belied its 3-3 record and rode the churning legs of its workhorse running back to a 16-7 Big Southeast District victory in front of an unusually sparse crowd in the final regular season game ever at the OHS stadium.

Setting its plan in motion from the game’s opening snap and never veering too far from its original course, the Trojans’ executed their singular mission of shoving the ball into Nathan Burkhardsmeier’s gut until he either passed out from pure exhaustion, or the Huskies’ found a way to stop him.

Neither happened on Thursday night.

Burkhardsmeier finished with a staggering 42 carries for 168 yards and scored his team-leading ninth touchdown of the season on a 1-yard run to cap a devastating game-opening drive that siphoned nearly 20% of the entire 4-quarter, 48-minute game clock and spanned 16 plays. Burkhardsmeier carried the ball 12 times and rang up 57 yards, none bigger than the 16 he gained on 3rd-and-15 from the OHS 30-yard line on the fifth play of the game.

By the time the Huskies finally got the ball for the first time there was less than three minutes remaining in the first quarter and its unusually high number of two-way linemen had already been put through a physical meat-grinder that would only become increasingly daunting as the evening progressed. New Prague not only dictated the tone on the offensive front, but finished with five sacks on defense, two of which came on back-to-back plays that stunted the Huskies’ only promising drive of the first half late in the second quarter.

When he wasn’t being dragged to the grass, starting quarterback Jacob Ginskey — who did not play in the second half after suffering an injury in the final few minutes just prior to intermission — was forced to scan New Prague’s defense amidst an increasingly-compressed pocket that often allowed for only a single read-progression before completely collapsing.

Though it’s never too late for the Huskies’ expert coaching staff to spin yarn into gold, the program’s current lack of big bodies in the junior and senior classes remains a work in progress as the regular season wraps up next week. Taking a huge hit when reigning all-district tackle Trever Schirmer went down with a season-ending injury in the summer, the staff has been forced to stitch-together a rotation of linemen using a mix of players from three different grade levels, each one cut from a different cloth.

Against the Trojans, players like Mikah Elstad, Grant Lower, Ethan Anderson and Torrin Smith once again rarely left the field and have started on both sides of the ball for the majority of the season.

“No question,” Williams said when asked if the Trojans physical running style took its toll on the linemen. “I wish we had a different choice.”

Adding to the Huskies’ woes in the first half was a Trojans’ offense that finished 4-for-4 on 3rd-and 8 yards or longer, scoring what turned out to be the game-deciding touchdown when tight end Jack Berger snatched a screen pass and followed a convoy of blockers into the end zone for a 31-yard catch-and-run.

Conversely, Owatonna gained less than 10 yards on its first three possessions combined and didn’t move the sticks for the first time until the 2:06-mark of the second quarter. Taking the keys to the offense once again in relief of an injured Ginskey, junior quarterback Noah Truelson helped spark the Huskies’ lone scoring drive with a 28-yard connection to Justin Gleason on 3rd-and-long from deep in OHS territory, but finished just 4-for-11 for 63 yards and was intercepted twice. Ginskey misfired on his first four passes and faired only slightly better in the statistical department, completing 4 of 9 throws for 47 yards.

Conner Grems scored his 10th rushing touchdown of the season to finish off the Huskies’ impressive 93-yard, 7-play drive to begin the third, but was held to under 10 yards in the first half and ended with 39 yards on 11 carries. Drew Kretlow accounted for the Huskies’ longest play of the game on a 37-yard sprint through New Prague’s temporarily generous defense and led the Huskies way with 53 yards on the ground.

After drawing within 13-7, Owatonna’s defense stepped up and kept the Huskies in the game thanks in large part to back-to-back 4th-down stands in the third quarter, only to see the offense turn the ball over three times (1 fumble, 2 interceptions) in the game’s final 17 minutes encompassing a four-possession span to end the game.

“Every time we got some traction on offense it seemed like we self-destructed,” Williams said. “Whether it was an interception, a botched snap, a bad pitch — it was just a lot of mistakes.”

UP NEXT: Wednesday, Oct. 19 at Kasson-Mantorville. The Komets were recently bumped from the Associated Press Class 4A top 10 poll after losing to undefeated Stewartville in Week 6. The Komets entered their Week 7 game on Friday as the heavy favorites against Red Wing and will almost certainly enter the matchup with a 5-2 record.

NEW PRAGUE 16, OWATONNA 7

FIRST QUARTER

NP—Nathan Burkhardsmeier 1 run (kick good), 2:52; 7-0 Trojans

SECOND QUARTER

NP—Jack Berger 31 pass from Will Seymour (kick blocked), 11:02; 13-0 Trojans

THIRD QUARTER

O—Conner Grems 4 run (Drew Henson kick), 8:39; 13-7 Trojans

FOURTH QUARTER

NP—New Prague 28 field goal, 4:41; 16-7 Trojans

OWATONNA RUSHING—Conner Grems 11-39-1; Drew Kretlow 5-53; Jacob Ginskey 4-(-15)’ Noah Truelson 4-(-30)

OWATONNA PASSING—Jacob Ginskey 4-9-47-0-0; Noah Truelson 4-11-63-0-2

OWATONNA RECEIVING—Grems 1-(-1); Caleb Hullopeter 4-49; Collin Vick 1-9; Justin Gleason 2-40; Ayden Walter 1-13