Owen Lansu took the field Friday for the first time in five weeks wearing a black brace, protection for the left arm he broke in the first half of Downers Grove North’s second game and had surgery on.

His right arm looked as good as ever.

The Downers Grove North senior quarterback and Minnesota recruit, sidelined the last four weeks, was scintillating in his return.

Lansu threw for 388 yards and four touchdowns, three of them to Oliver Thulin.

His return spurred Downers Grove North to a 41-28 win over visiting York in a West Suburban Silver showdown of state-ranked teams.

Lansu, who was cleared by doctors to return Wednesday, has a scholarship in hand from a Big Ten school. He has a future at the next level.

But he never wavered in his drive to return for Downers Grove North in his last of three varsity seasons.

“I care so much about this team and this program and I take so much ownership in it,” Lansu said. “I know how much they need me out there and I want to be out there more than I want to do anything in life. I just want to be out on the field with my guys playing ball. I made it my mission to get back faster than I was expected to be back.”

Lansu was 15-for-21 passing, leading Downers Grove North (6-1, 4-1) to touchdowns on six of seven drives before a kneel-down in the last minute. Thulin caught eight of those passes for 195 yards.

Lansu, who’s been throwing in his time out and practiced this week, wasted no time in showing that he had no rust on the deep ball. He completed a 42-yard pass to Will Vala on his first throw, and a 20-yard TD pass to Thulin on the next.

Downers Grove North’s third drive, Lansu dropped a perfect 28-yard throw over a defender to Joey Serpico for a 14-0 lead.

“Owen Lansu is a hell of a football player. He’s done a lot of great things for us,” Downers Grove North coach Joe Horeni said. “This might have been one of his best games passing the ball, which was good. We needed it.”

Good for Thulin to get his starting quarterback back.

Thulin’s 56-yard catch on another deep ball set up a Kevin Jay 2-yard TD run.

And then Lansu threw TD passes for 31 and 27 yards to Thulin in the second half.

“We didn’t lose our connection; he’s been practicing, his left arm was hurt so he could still throw, practicing with a cast on his arm and still throwing. He made it work. He’s a dude,” Thulin said. “The boys are back, that’s all I’ll say.”

Downers Grove North hardly kept training wheels on Lansu in his return, as he threw for 279 of his yards in the first half.

“That’s what he wants and that’s what we want,” Horeni said. “As a senior and a three-year starter for us, he’s played a lot of football. He wouldn’t want it any other way.”

York coach Don Gelsomino said his team was preparing to potentially face Lansu, or Downers Grove North without Lansu.

But the Dukes (5-2, 3-1) could not stop Lansu’s deep ball.

“They just made more plays than we did,” Gelsomino said. “We changed the coverage, we tried to mix things up, tried to do a lot of different things. When you throw a lot of 50/50 balls and make the plays, that’s kind of what happened.”

York, though, matched Downers Grove North for much of a back-and-forth first half.

Dominic Alfano threw a 12-yard TD pass to Hunter Stepinach, and a 12-yard TD pass to Anthony Massel to twice close the Dukes within a score.

Alfano was knocked out of the game on a sack York’s last drive of the first half, but backup Zack Assaad didn’t blink coming in cold.

He led an 85-yard scoring drive, hitting the 6-foot-7 Stepinach for a 19-yard TD on the last play of the first half to close York within 28-21.

The Dukes drove down again in their first possession of the second half, but Downers Grove North’s Connor Crowley intercepted Assaad in the end zone.

Assaad was 16 for 25 for 153 yards in relief of Alfano.

“Zack played great. He came in cold and 85 down the field,” Gelsomino said. “That kid was ready to go, he prepares. That [interception] was a turning point.”

Henry Duda rushed for 113 yards for York. Jay ran for two TDs for Downers Grove North, which lost two-way lineman Aiden Solecki, a Purdue recruit, to a leg injury in the first half.

“Sounds like it’s good news, the best news possible from what we saw,” Horeni said. “He went to the hospital and he’s back. Put him in a brace, see how it’s healing. But sounds like good news.”