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After a grueling 364-day setback, Owatonna’s Jacob and Nolan Ginskey finally got their second chance to reunite on the football field and start building something truly special between the lines.

Unlike last season, this year’s debut went off without a hitch, and the pair hasn’t looked back since.

With the postseason just around the corner and Jacob entering his final month as a high school football player, their storybook campaign and overall redemption arc has reached its final act and will wrap up at some point within the next month. When that day inevitably occurs, it will punctuate a greater narrative that traces back almost 14 months and began when Jacob and Nolan took the field for the Huskies’ season-opener at OHS Stadium against Rochester Mayo.

TRIALS & TRIBULATIONS

Owatonna kicked off last season on Sept. 2, 2022, against the reigning Section 1-5A champion Spartans at the old OHS stadium. Jacob was in his second full season as the Huskies’ anointed starting quarterback while Nolan had earned a spot in the lineup after a great preseason camp and an eye-opening scrimmage session the previous weekend.

Things got off to a promising start when the duo hooked up for an electrifying 82-yard catch-and-run that leveled the score at 20-20 on the opening possession of the third quarter .

Unfortunately, it was only downhill from there.

In the span of less than two quarters, both would exit the game after sustaining injuries that would ultimately impact the entire trajectory of their respective careers and push both to their physical and mental limitations.

Nolan sustained his injury first after being tackled on a kick return in the third quarter. With adrenaline pumping through his veins, he experienced almost no discomfort in the immediate aftermath of the incident and took the field for the Huskies’ first play of the ensuing possession.

And that’s when it hit him.

“I couldn’t feel (any pain) right away,” he said. “But after one play on offense I couldn’t put an ounce of pressure on it and needed somebody to lean on the rest of the game. After I started to feel it, I knew it was serious. But right away, I was ready to play on it.”

After the game, Nolan was seen by a doctor where x-rays revealed that he’d fractured the growth plate in his left foot, effectively ending his rookie season right there on the examination table. He would spend the next handful of weeks sporting a cumbersome cast that extended the entire length of his leg below the knee and was only able to move around with the aid of a Knee Walker.

“I wasn’t cleared until a week after our last game (in mid-November),” Nolan said. “And it was very weak so it was about three weeks after that when I started playing basketball again.”

As for Jacob, he lasted a tad longer in Week 1 last season before joining his little brother on the M.A.S.H. unit. His injury resulted on a play where he was tackled while attempting to escape pressure near the home sideline with just under six minutes left in the fourth quarter.

Unlike Nolan, though, Jacob knew something was wrong before he even got to his feet. When he finally did peel himself off the grass, he couldn’t put any pressure on his right ankle and gingerly limped off the field toward the training table. Within minutes, a large bag of ice was snugly wrapped to the base of his leg, his throbbing ankle buried beneath several layers of athletic tape and elastic fabric. All he could do at that point was helplessly watch as the Spartans rallied for two unanswered touchdowns in the game’s final five minutes and escaped with a 34-27 victory.

Jacob was later diagnosed with a high ankle sprain and the lingering effects of the ailment hampered him for weeks. He eventually returned to the lineup in Week 4, but was unable to come close to replicating his 307-yard, two-touchdown performance from the opener for the remainder of the season and was shelved once again on a short week against Kasson-Mantorville in the regular season finale.

“It was the worst injury I’ve ever had,” Jacob said. “I wouldn’t say I felt 100% when I came back right away — probably around 90% at that point. But I felt like I was good enough to play and then after that game and throughout the rest of the (week) I continued to ice and elevate and rest.”

“It was the worst injury I’ve ever had I wouldn’t say I felt 100% when I came back right away — probably around 90% at that point. But I felt like I was good enough to play and then after that game and throughout the rest of the (week) I continued to ice and elevate and rest.”

– JACOB GINSKEY

The short-handed Huskies — who also lost two-way starter Owen Beyer to a back injury late in the season — stumbled to 4-4 after losing 28-21 to the KoMets in Week 8. Fortunately, each of their victories had come against sectional opponents and were awarded the No. 2 seed for the Section 1-5A tournament.

Benefitting from a game-altering penalty that nullified a long go-ahead TD run by the Raiders’ Kamden Kyser in the middle of the fourth quarter, Owatonna executed well down the stretch and won 17-14, but felt fortunate to have survived its semifinal contest and headed to Rochester the following week for a do-or-die rematch with the Spartans on Nov. 4, 2022.

In a forbidding twist of fate, Jacob once against started strong against Mayo — orchestrating his team’s lone scoring drive and tossing a game-tying TD to Jack Strom in the first quarter — but saw his season come to a scary, and frustrating, conclusion after a violent collision with a Spartans’ defender left him sprawled on the turf late in the second quarter.

Jacob appeared to lay motionless for a few agonizing moments in the immediate aftermath of the hit and was soon surrounded by a small crowd of concerned coaches, first responders and medical staff. Eventually he was strapped onto a gurney and loaded into the back of an ambulance for the short trip across town to the emergency room.

Thankfully, the initial fog from the collision lifted rather quickly and Jacob progressed to the point where he was actually given clearance to drive himself home that evening.

By the time basketball rolled around, both Ginskey brothers had fully healed and went on to participate in track and field as well.

As the spring turned into summer, and the summer dragged closer to the start of the new football season, the pair had found themselves not only fully healed from a physical standpoint but having gained a newfound appreciation for their favorite sport. Their first season as teammates had been cheated by a pair of unfortunate incidents and the adversity that ensued had reshaped their mindset.

It also set the stage for a triumphant return.

TRIUMPHS

Internally, Jacob and Nolan both entered the 2023 campaign with similarly lofty expectations.

Externally, it was a different story.

For Jacob, not only was he forced to shoulder the extra pressure associated with playing such a high-profile position for such a high-profile program, but was staring directly into the glare of his senior season. After a promising start to his career as a sophomore in 2021 and a tumultuous middle act as a junior, the start of the 2023 campaign represented his final shot at making it all right.

“You grow and learn from everything (and) that leads up to the senior season,” Ginskey said. “Everything that’s happened has helped me prepare for this year.”

Conversely, Nolan found himself in a bit of a different scenario as Week 1 approached this past August. Though most surrounding the program expected him to absorb a significant role after becoming one of just a small handful of sophomores to ever start a Week 1 game in recent OHS history, he still had less than three full quarters of varsity action under his belt and was also set to join a group of receivers that his position coach, Nate Skala, lauded as one of the best he’s ever seen in almost 15 years on the staff.

With so many talented pass-catchers to share the load and only one ball to go around, this meant Nolan wouldn’t be asked to carry any more of the offensive load than he could handle and ease into his role as the Huskies’ starting slot receiver.

Or he could follow a different path and outperform every conceivable preseason expectation and emerge as one of the most dangerous weapons in all of Class 5A.

“He’s magical with the ball in his hands,” Owatonna head coach Jeff Williams said about Nolan in the preseason.

Magical, indeed.

In a terrific pass-catching, juke-making, speed-burning, defense-wrecking tour-de-force to open his junior campaign, Nolan racked up exactly 500 yards and caught 35 passes in Owatonna’s 3-1 start. To date, his 11-catch, 206-yard, three-TD outburst against Northfield in Week 4 will go down as arguably the finest regular season performance by a receiver in program history and is the singular defining moment of Owatonna’s entire season thus far. His third and final touchdown grab that night came with roughly 4:00 on clock and served as the game-winning score in the Huskies’ pivotal 26-21 victory that all-but cinched the top seed for the Section 1-5A tournament.

In the final four games of the schedule, Nolan has added a pair of rushing touchdowns — the first two of his career — and turned in a 145-yard, one-TD effort against No. 2-ranked Mankato West in Week 6. His 717 yards during the regular season are tops in Class 5A and within the top 20 amongst all seven MSHSL competitive levels. It’s going to take a decent run by his team to make it happen, but Nolan remains in contention to become the first 1,000-yard receiver in school history.

Nolan’s meteoric rise — which has also included a team-high three interceptions, six pass-breakups and one defensive touchdown from his cornerback spot on the other side of the ball —  has no doubt been a critical component to Owatonna’s success this season.

The equivalent sentiment can also be applied to the elder Ginskey. As one of the team’s four captains and the lone individual tasked with orchestrating the entire offensive operation, Jacob has maximized his newfound cache of weapons and posted some head-turning numbers along the way.

And it all starts with that sweet spiral.

Launching from his fingertips and spinning tightly on its axis while briskly cutting through the air, there’s just something about a Jacob Ginskey pass that looks different than 95% of his counterparts.

And now, he has the production has surged into the same realm.

As of Oct. 23, Jacob is third in all of Class 5A with 1,666 passing yards to go with 15 touchdowns and has completed a career-high 55% of his passes. After firing a combined 15 interceptions during his first two seasons, Jacob has been picked off just twice — one of which was on a throw that simply slipped out of his palm and sailed in the wrong direction — and lost just one fumble.

“I would just say the command of the game and confidence,” he responded when asked about what aspect of the game he’s improved the most as a senior. “Everything else, too. It’s all the little things and all the small things. I feel like I’ve become a more fully-developed player and a better quarterback — a better leader. Like my uncle (Matt Skala) said, having that moxie. That’s huge.”

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