The Minnesota Vikings had some travel trouble Saturday getting to northern New Jersey for their game Sunday at the New York Giants.

Their team plane experienced mechanical issues that required turning around shortly after departing Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, according to a team spokesperson. The Vikings were expected to arrive in Newark later Saturday night after boarding a second plane, the spokesperson said.

Minnesota is 6-8 and, like the 2-12 Giants, has been eliminated from playoff contention. The Vikings are coming off beating Dallas, with this game more about young quarterback J.J. McCarthy getting additional NFL experience.

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RIVER FALLS, Wisc. – Despite wind chill temperatures dipping below zero and gusts near 40 mph Saturday, Wisconsin-River Falls quarterback Kaleb Blaha eschewed the warmth of a sideline cape for virtually all of a Division III semifinal against Johns Hopkins.

The senior and Coon Rapids native yet again played Superman, however, passing for a school-record 520 yards and five touchdowns during a 48-41 victory that sent the third-seeded Falcons to their first-ever championship game on Jan. 4 in Canton, Ohio.

River Falls (13-1), in the postseason for the first time since 1996, will face top-seeded North Central (14-0), from Naperville, Ill., in what’s known as the Stagg Bowl. It’s played adjacent to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Blaha’s biggest toss came with 45 seconds remaining and his team facing third-and-seven on its own 21-yard line. The first team All-American hit Blake Rohrer for a 79-yard touchdown that broke the last of the game’s four ties.

The throw down the left sideline came within inches of being intercepted by a Blue Jays’ safety flying across the field, but Rohrer snared it and broke into the open, sending an announced crowd of 2,897 into pandemonium. Fans started tailgating at 7 a.m. outside Ramer Field.

University of Wisconsin-River Falls receiver Blake Rohrer (18) makes a catch during the Division-III semifinal against Johns Hopkins on Dec. 20 in River Falls, Wis. Rohrer scored the winning touchdown on the play. (Photos courtesy of Pat Deninger, UW-River Falls)

“What a battle, what a dog fight,” said 15-year River Falls coach Matt Walker, whose team won its 14th consecutive home game. “The kind of game we haven’t been in a lot. It showed we can win any sort of football game. We had to keep outscoring them and when we needed a big play on defense, we got it.”

The duo of Blaha and Rohrer first came about when they bartended together at the Tarnation Tavern on Main Street in River Falls two years ago. It was Rohrer’s first semester at the school and he mentioned that, although he’d gone to Grand Canyon University as a regular student before transferring to River Falls to play basketball, he’d played football at Woodbury High School.

Blaha saw the younger player’s online highlights and urged him to join the Falcons’ football team, so Rohrer exited the hardwood and took his speed and leaping ability to the gridiron. Saturday’s deciding play, on what’s known as a hole-shot fade behind a cornerback and in front of a safety, hadn’t been called all season.

“I knew I had to go get the ball, that I couldn’t wait on it,” said Rohrer, who caught the pass inches from the sideline before cutting inside and sprinting to pay dirt for his third touchdown of the day. “I was saying ‘Get there, get there, don’t go down.’ This is so surreal.”

The bearded and gregarious Walker expressed happiness for his players, the school and its town.

“We feel so supported,” he said. “To see and hear so many people on another cold day during the holidays, it means a lot to me and this team. It was chaos out there and I think it made a different in the game.”

River Falls trailed the eighth-seeded Blue Jays 27-21 at halftime.

Blaha had suffered a stinger during a first-quarter run, and missed several plays because of it. Walker wouldn’t say exactly what his message to the signal-caller had been after, but it seemed to involve profane inspiration to play through pain.

“Blaha is the real deal,” second-year Johns Hopkins coach Dan Wodicka said. “His confidence and his command of the offense is really impressive. I’m not sure what injury he sustained, but he showed toughness coming back from that.”

Blaha completed 30 of 48 passes and had one intercepted. Although a prolific runner earlier in the season, he had only 30 yards in 16 attempts on the ground Saturday, the second consecutive week the Falcons stayed mostly to the air.

Rohrer caught a game-high nine passes for 236 yards and diminutive speedster Jalen Reed had a team-high 52 yards rushing on four carries.

The teams combined for more than 1,000 yards of total offense, with Johns Hopkins rushing for 233 and passing for 228. Quarterback Bay Harvey completed 14 of 31 passes for 213 yards and two touchdowns. He returned after being hit late in the second quarter on a play during which a targeting foul was reversed, incensing Wodicka.

The Blue Jays’ boss was in the dumps again when his team had the Falcons backed up in their own end with less than a minute to go, yet surrendered the winning points. A perfect punt by Chase Alley veered out of bounds at the River Falls 4 preceding that fateful possession.

“There was a cross wind against them at that moment and it was ‘Let’s force their punt unit on the field’ and then they made a fantastic play,” said Wodicka, whose Baltimore-based team lost in the national semifinals for a second consecutive year. “That happened all day all over the field — really athletic people making great plays.”

One of them was made by River Falls defensive lineman Brady Block, who snuffed out Johns Hopkins’ final hopes when he intercepted a Harvey pass over the middle on the first play from scrimmage following Rohrer’s big touchdown catch.

“He’s a little thicker guy, but he’s a sneaky, shifty athlete,” said River Falls linebacker Gage Timm, who made a game-high 15 tackles. “I was shell-shocked for a bit when I realized we’d gotten a D-line pick to end the game.”

Walker was asked how he’ll balance allowing his players to enjoy this playoff run yet remain focused on preparation during the next two weeks.

“I have no clue yet what to do because we haven’t let ourselves think beyond this week,” Walker said with an ear-to-ear grin. “But what a fun thing to get to figure out.”

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With the band mostly back together, the Minnesota Wild made the goal horn wail enough for their seventh straight win on Saturday.

Matt Boldy had a pair of first-period goals for the Wild, who were playing with a healthier lineup after five regulars returned. They put together enough defense over the final two periods to hang on for a 5-2 win over a determined Edmonton Oilers’ squad.

Ryan Hartman’s opportunistic goal in the dying seconds of the opening period was the difference maker. Vladimir Tarasenko added a third period insurance goal — his fourth in the past three games — as the Wild improved to 4-0-0 since last week’s blockbuster trade for Quinn Hughes. Tarasenko also set up Nico Sturm for an empty-net goal with 85 seconds left on the clock.

Filip Gustavsson was busy with Edmonton’s talented offense all afternoon, finishing with 28 saves and improving to 12-8-3 as Minnesota’s starter.

Boldy, who entered the contest with a three-game scoring streak, quickly made it four when he intercepted a puck from Oilers defenseman Mattias Ekholm at the defensive blue line. Sprung on a breakaway, Boldly’s crafty backhander slipped past the Edmonton goalie on the glove side less than five minutes into the game.

Near the midway point of the first, Oilers star forward Leon Draisaitl was whistled for cross checking and protested a bit too forcefully on his way to the penalty box, drawing a second minor for unsportsmanlike conduct.

There was nothing subtle or crafty about Boldy’s work on the extended power play, as he took a pass from Hughes and used brute force to blast the puck past Calvin Pickard, high on the stick side this time, doubling the Wild’s lead.

Edmonton got on the board a short time later via a nice redirection in front of Gustavsson, and tied the game before the end of the first, getting a power play goal as a result of a messy scramble of bodies in the Minnesota crease.

The tie was short-lived, as Hartman cashed in a pretty give-and-go pass from Jake Middleton with 7.2 seconds on the clock.

Edmonton did everything except score on a power play early in the middle frame, and the Wild got some important puck luck when a shot by Oilers defenseman Evan Bouchard clanked the inside of the goal post behind Gustavsson, then sailed out of harm’s way.

Tarasenko, acquired in a trade with Detroit in July, had been relatively quiet early in his time with the Wild but now has five goals since returning from an injury in late November. He popped in a loose puck in the crease behind Pickard after an initial shot by Yakov Trenin.

Pickard finished with 32 saves for the Oilers, who had won four of their previous five games but are now 0-2-0 versus the Wild this season.

The Wild’s three-game, pre-Christmas homestand continues on Sunday evening, with the Central Division-leading Colorado Avalanche making their second visit of the season to St. Paul. The Wild won their first meeting of the season 3-2 in a shootout on the day after Thanksgiving.

Briefly

Teams that will compete in the 2026 IIHF World Junior Hockey Championship — which begins Friday, Dec. 26, in St. Paul and Minneapolis — have already begun arriving in the Twin Cities, with members of Team Switzerland attending Saturday’s game. The Swiss team’s tournament opener is on Dec. 27 at Grand Casino Arena versus Team USA, the two-time defending gold medalists.

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Matthew Lopez is America’s hottest playwright. He launched a seismic eruption in the theatrical world with his 2018 creation, “The Inheritance,” a seven-hour stage epic focused upon the evolution of gay culture in America and the AIDS crisis’ role in it. The ambitious project won every major award for a new play in both New York and London, and Lopez has followed it up with an acclaimed script for a 2022 musical adaptation of the film comedy, “Some Like It Hot.”

For the newest production on its proscenium stage, the Guthrie Theater has reached back to an earlier Lopez play, 2011’s “Somewhere,” a work that – while possessing much charm – nevertheless bears the marks of an author still trying to find his voice.

It’s what’s known as a kitchen-sink drama, in which family issues are hashed out within the claustrophobic confines of a conflict-filled home. And Lopez obeys most of the conventions of the form, save for one imaginative twist: The characters periodically break into dance numbers that hint at the liberation they seek.

While those interludes are engaging, I came away from director Joseph Haj’s staging of “Somewhere” feeling that there needs to be more passion in this tale of a family full of urban dreamers struggling to find their way into show business and out of poverty. It never achieves the naturalism necessary to make its realistic exchanges absorbing, nor the abandon that would give flight to its fantastical dance sequences.

We’re taken to 1959 Manhattan and the household of a Puerto Rican family that’s simply mad about musical theater. Mom is a Broadway usher, her oldest a dancer who played a small role in “The King and I” as a child, his sister studying dance and youngest brother taking acting lessons. While their musician patriarch is on the road, the eldest sibling has become the clear-eyed voice of discipline in the household who struggles with the strain of their hand-to-mouth life.

Yet it’s a family driven by dreams, and some hope arrives when an adopted brother who’s since fled the nest becomes an assistant to choreographer and director Jerome Robbins during his work on the stage and film versions of the musical, “West Side Story.” Could this story rooted in conflicts between street gangs of Puerto Rican and European descent prove a conduit for their ambitions?

While leaning on Robbins’ style for its dance interludes – kudos to choreographer Maija Garcia for deftly capturing his movement vocabulary and the performers for so ably executing it – the script’s structure seems more an homage to Tennessee Williams.

Mother Inez is as devoted to her delusions as a typical Williams heroine, and Maggie Bofill makes her quite engaging when she launches into one of Lopez’s humorous stream-of-consciousness monologues. But Preston Perez plays eldest brother Alejandro too close to the vest, keeping his inner life obscured, even holding too much in reserve during his inevitable act-two explosion. Yet it’s a demanding role, as it also requires spotlight-seizing dance skills, and Perez gracefully delivers on that account.

It feels odd to say that a show would be well-served by being both more realistic and more fantastical, but “Somewhere” probably would, as it’s driven by the friction between heartwarming dreams and harsh realities, and more palpable passion would help raise the emotional stakes for both the characters and audiences.

Rob Hubbard can be reached at wordhub@yahoo.com.

‘Somewhere’

When: Through Feb. 1

Where: Guthrie Theater, 818 Second St. S., Mpls.

Tickets: $94-$18, available at 612-377-2224 or guthrietheater.org

Capsule: A promising premise could use more passion to take flight.

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