The Falcons weren’t going to bow down to anyone: Not on this stage. Not with these stakes. Not with where they came from.

North Central was 45-1 over its previous 46 games entering Sunday’s Division-III national championship game in Canton, Ohio. Wisconsin-River Falls coach Matt Walker surmised the bulk of those 45 games were won before a snap was played, as opponents melted at the mere site of the NC logo plastered to the side of the Cardinals’ helmets.

That’s not really the Falcons’ style.

Sunday was. In a battle of wills, it was North Central who eventually relented, with the dynastic Cardinals jarred loose from their typically steady stance atop the nation’s highest perch.

Wisconsin-River Falls coach Matt Walker receives a bath from his players at the end of the Falcons’ 24-14 win over North Central in the Division-III football national championship game in Canton, Ohio on Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026 (Courtesy of Josh Padilla)

After stumbling out of the gates, the Falcons out-scored North Central 21-0 over the game’s final 35 minutes en route to a 24-14 victory that secured the program’s first national title and completed a remarkable turnaround.

The night, Walker said, reflected the journey.

“It wasn’t going our way early. It wasn’t easy early,” he said, “and this group just sort of hung in there.”

Wisconsin-River Falls was born in the mud, in more ways than one. Prior to this season, the Falcons hadn’t been to the playoffs since the mid-1990s. They were 23-67 over Walker’s first nine seasons at the helm.

It wasn’t until the coach vowed to up his aggression to levels not previously seen in 2020 that Wisconsin-River Falls finally elevated itself out of a lethargic state of losing.

“I stopped caring what everyone thought. We were just going to do it our way,” Walker said. “It’s an easy thing to say. It’s a cool thing to say. It gets clicks and it’s trendy and awesome, but a lot of people still get conservative, and you do think about what other people think, what other coaches think and what dads will think. I finally said, ‘I just do not care.’”

Walker got bold. He moved his offensive coordinator Jake Wissing to defensive coordinator, a side of the ball completely new to him. Joe Matheson, who was just 28 years old at the start of the 2021 campaign, was elevated to offensive coordinator.

The Falcons would deploy the fastest offense in football, which snapped the ball at a rate not approached by any other team in the nation. They’d go for it on fourth down as frequently as possible.

Ever since then, it’s been full go for the Falcons – 100 miles per hour, right at the throats of their opponents, through success and failure. He doubled down in the middle of the 2025 season.

After Wisconsin-River Falls dropped its WIAC opener – a 21-17 loss to Wisconsin-Oshkosh in early October – the head coach reiterated aggression. All week, he vowed that on the Falcons’ first play from scrimmage the following game against Wisconsin-Platteville, they would “throw it as far as we can to Blake Rohrer.”

It resulted in an 80-yard touchdown pass.

“We were off and running from that point,” Walker said.

Win or lose, you would play their brand of football.

There would be no compromise on the approach, not even under the brightest lights of a nationally-televised title tilt.

You won’t knock out a heavyweight from a flat-footed posture.

Walker’s mantra leading into Sunday’s affair against the best team in the country was the Falcons would be “unapologetically aggressive in all phases of the game.”

“Whether we got beat 100-0, or won the football game,” he said. “It looked foolish at times, but we never wavered from that approach. We were aggressive as heck. And even when we didn’t convert it a lot in some of the aggressive plays, we stayed true to that plan.”

Indeed, the Falcons went 0 for 3 on fourth down attempts on Sunday, all of which came inside the North Central red zone.

Wisconsin-River Falls had the ball at the North Central 18-yard line with a 10-point advantage and fewer than four minutes to play. Rather than drain clock, the Falcons went pass, pass, pass, with three straight incompletions resulting in a turnover on downs.

The play calls drew criticism from the broadcast.

But the results didn’t matter. The consistent message did – circumstance would not dictate decisions. The Falcons were in all-out attack mode from start to finish.

“We told the guys today … we were never going to flinch,” Walker said. “If we miss a pressure and they score – don’t care, no flinching. If you miss the first 15 throws of the game – don’t care, no flinch. If we do the fake punt, fake field goal we had cooked up and didn’t use today and don’t get it – don’t care, weren’t going to flinch.”

It was clear, from the second quarter on, that Wisconsin-River Falls would be the aggressor who dictated the game’s terms. And fortune usually favors the bold.

“That’s the best football team we played, but they still were uncomfortable,” Walker said, “because no one plays them like that.”

On either side of the ball.

Donovan McNeal housed a 48-yard run on the fourth play from scrimmage to give North Central an early 7-0 lead. Cardinals quarterback Garret Wilson was perfect through the air for much of the first half.

A pair of turnovers – a fumble recovery by Gage Timm and an interception on the final play of the half by safety Taylor Sussner – inside the Falcons’ 10 yard line were required to keep Wisconsin-River Falls within four at the break against an offense that was moving the ball fluidly.

But the script was flipped over the final two frames, as Wissing ramped up the pressure via heavy-blitz packages that knocked North Central entirely out of its offensive rhythm.

“We were bringing a little more exotic pressures late, some more internal pressures with (Gage), and he was walking up to the edge,” Walker said. “We were trying it all, because we weren’t early in the football game, and we went fully into the rolodex in the second half.”

Unapologetic aggression.

The play of the game came early in the fourth quarter, with the Falcons leading by three and North Central possessing the ball at its own 37 yard line. Wilson dropped back to pass, but his attempt was knocked out of the sky by defensive lineman Jack Olson, who corralled the loose ball for an interception he returned to the Cardinals’ 12 yard line.

While Wisconsin-River Falls’ record-breaking offense captured the headlines all season, it was the defense that shined brightest on the game’s biggest stage. North Central entered the game with the nation’s highest-scoring offense (49.4 points per game). The Falcons shut the Cardinals out over the game’s final 41 minutes.

“When they were running the football on us a little bit early, I’m sure everyone in the crowd, everyone with a Falcon logo on was a little bit worried,” Walker said. “And all these guys did was get tough and nasty and made plays. And every time we needed a big turnover, they got it.”

Wisconsin-River Falls quarterback Kaleb Blaha runs in one of his two touchdowns during the Falcons’ 24-14 win over North Central in the Division-III football national championship game in Canton, Ohio on Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026 (Courtesy of Josh Padilla)

On the very next play following Olson’s interception, Wisconsin-River Falls quarterback Kaleb Blaha rumbled in for his second rushing touchdown of the affair.

The Division-III Player of the Year ran for 128 yards on the ground, while also throwing for 291 and another score, a 16-yard, first-half scoring strike to Blake Rohrer. Blaha, who arrived in River Falls as primarily a running quarterback, finished his senior year with 6,189 total yards of offense, breaking Joe Burrow’s single-season record across all NCAA levels.

“When I finally saw it on the scoreboard,” Blaha said, “I was like, ‘Yeah, that’s pretty cool.’”

But that’s not why he came back to Wisconsin-River Falls for one final run this fall after receiving a medical redshirt. He did so to win a national championship, something his head coach convinced him was possible years ago.

“I did have a vision of it,” Walker said, “but it is sort of still a surreal feeling to know we accomplished it.”

And they did it their way.

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Today is Monday, Jan. 5, the fifth day of 2026. There are 360 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Jan. 5, 1980, “Rapper’s Delight,” by The Sugarhill Gang, became the first hip-hop song to reach the Billboard Top 40, helping to popularize the emerging musical genre.

Also on this date:

In 1896, an Austrian newspaper reported the discovery by German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen (RENT’-gun) of a new type of radiation that came to be called “X-ray.”

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In 1925, Democrat Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming took office as America’s first female governor.

In 1933, construction began on the Golden Gate Bridge; the bridge was completed in May 1937.

In 1953, Samuel Beckett’s two-act tragicomedy “Waiting for Godot,” considered a classic of the Theater of the Absurd, premiered in Paris.

In 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower proposed assistance to countries to help them resist communist aggression in what became known as the Eisenhower Doctrine.

In 1972, President Richard Nixon announced the Space Shuttle program, directing NASA to produce a reusable vehicle that would boost manned space exploration while bringing down its costs. (The first shuttle launched in 1981 and the last in 2011.)

In 2022, Australia denied entry to tennis star Novak Djokovic, who was seeking to play for a 10th Australian Open title later in the month; authorities canceled his visa upon his arrival in Melbourne because he failed to meet the requirements for an exemption to COVID-19 vaccination rules.

In 2024, a door plug on Alaska Airlines jetliner blew out shortly after takeoff from Portland, Oregon, forcing the 171 passengers and six crew to don oxygen masks before the pilots made an emergency landing. No one was seriously hurt, but the sudden depressurization left a gaping hole in the Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft.

Today’s Birthdays:

Actor Robert Duvall is 95.
Filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki is 85.
Actor Vinnie Jones is 61.
TV personality Carrie Ann Inaba is 58.
Rock singer Marilyn Manson is 57.
Actor-filmmaker Bradley Cooper is 51.
Actor January Jones is 48.
Actor Brooklyn Sudano is 45.
Actor Mike Faist is 34.
Actor and model Suki Waterhouse is 34.
Actor Walker Scobell is 17.

The 50th annual World Junior Championships were going to be different for Canada this year. After back-to-back quarterfinal exits viewed as something of a national catastrophe in a hockey-mad country, 2026 was a chance for the favored power to return to the top of the heap.

It has been different, but not in the way Canada had hoped. It lost to the Czech Republic, 6-4, Sunday in the semifinals at the Grand Casino Arena, which might have been 25 percent full for the clash. Tomas Poletin scored the winning goal with a minute remaining and his team added an empty-net tally before celebrating wildly.

The result sent the Czechs, bronze medalists the last two years and now responsible for three consecutive Canadian exits, into Monday’s gold-medal game against Sweden, an overtime victor against Finland in Sunday’s earlier semifinal. Canada, which won the last of its 20 WJC championships in 2023, faces Finland for the bronze.

“It’s the same feeling,” said Canadian star Gavin McKenna, who could be the first pick in June’s NHL draft. “You come all this way and don’t get any opportunities to throw on the flag. Letting your country down sucks.”

Czechia’s Maxmilian Curran began the winning play with a shot from between the circles. It appeared headed wide left before caroming into the net off Poletin’s skate as he was spun around by a defender. Poletin was facing away from the net when the deflection occurred, so the goal was allowed to stand.

“Those bounces are going to happen, and unfortunately we were on the wrong end of it,” said Canadian captain Porter Martone, whose team lost top-six forward Brady Martin to an upper-body injury partway through the night. “It was a pretty crazy ending, but that’s what junior hockey is. I wish we could have controlled that game better and slowed it down.”

Said Czech coach Patrick Augusta: “I’d say we were a little more hungry. Our guys showed a lot of character and will to beat them.”

The third period featured five goals, including an empty-net tally in the final seconds. The Czechs led, 3-2, at the stanza’s start, but Canada’s Cole Reschny scooted across the top of the crease and jammed the puck inside the far post to deadlock the game four minutes after the second intermission.

Five minutes later, Czech forward Vojtech Cihar powered around defenseman Caleb Desnoyers from the right wing and chipped a shot past goaltender Jack Ivankovic (31 saves) and under the crossbar at the near post. Canada didn’t help itself by taking two penalties within a minute not long after, although it killed off both fouls.

Canada pulled into a 4-4 tie with three minutes remaining. A shot from center point struck a stick in front and caromed to Martone, who scored at the right post.

The teams brought premade animosity into the game, not just from medal-round meetings the last two years, but from Canada’s 7-5 victory in pool play earlier in the current tournament. The Czechs felt they paid for being too reactive and were determined not to repeat their mistake.

“They try to get in our heads and trash talk and cross check you after the whistles,” said forward Adam Novotny. “But you have to show you’re a grown player and you’re not going to do something stupid.

“Those small things win you the game. You have to go to the net and take the punch.”

The Czech Republic had five power plays to Canada’s three. McKenna was assessed a 10-minute misconduct after the empty-net goal for verbal abuse of the officials.

Martone wasn’t willing to blame the men in stripes.

“You can talk all you want about the officiating, but if we’d really wanted to win that game, we could have found a way,” he said. “Obviously there were some calls we thought didn’t go the way they should have.”

Canada opened the scoring during the 16th minute on a power play set up by a goaltender interference penalty. A scramble resulted in Michael Misa being able to feed the puck from slightly below the left side of the goal line to atop the crease. Tij Iginla scored there despite the adjacent but inefficient presence of defenseman Jakub Fibigr.

The Czechs equalized two minutes later, their aggressive forecheck causing Canadian defenseman Braeden Cootes to hurriedly rid himself of the puck in the left corner. The biscuit bounced behind the net and out to the top of the opposite circle, from where Tomas Galvas unloaded a backhand shot.

Ivankovic kicked the effort onto the stick of Curran, standing to the left of the crease. The forward partially fanned on his own shot, the effect being a sort of changeup, drifting under Ivankovic.

“That was the key to our game, the forecheck and positional play,” said Augusta said. “We didn’t want to give them odd-man rushes with chipping the puck out and flying. We were very careful tonight and I think it worked.”

The Czech Republic went up, 2-1, early in the second period. Adam Titlbach popped a shot from between the circles and under the crossbar after receiving Max Psenicka’s backhand pass from the right circle.

The Czechs took consecutive penalties 21 seconds apart midway through the middle stanza. Canada took advantage, Zayne Parekh firing off the glove of netminder Michal Orsulak from the right circle.

Canada’s Samuel Drancak was awarded a penalty shot two minutes before the second intermission. Orsulak stopped the attempt but tripped Drancak, so a second try was ordered. Orsulak denied that one as well.

“He kept us in it and won us the game eventually,” said forward Vaclav Nestrasil, one of 17 players on his team who skate for Canadian junior clubs. “I hugged him and told him nice job and hopefully he’ll reset and do it again tomorrow as well.”

Said Augusta: “It was a very tough moment for us and the game could have gotten away from us. But our guys’ heads weren’t down. That’s not common and this team has it.”

Forty-three seconds before the break, Curran and Adam Benak broke in 2 on 1 with diving Canadian backchecker Sam O’Reilly too late to stop a lateral pass from the former to the latter. He smacked home a one-time shot from the right circle.

“You don’t win every game in hockey and you have to handle it like a pro,” said Martone, whose team met Czechia in the medal round for a fifth consecutive WJC. “It’s obviously a tough pill to swallow, but we’re still going for a medal tomorrow.”

Sweden 4, Finland 3 (shootout)

The Scandinavian foes played their ninth consecutive game decided by one goal or less, Anton Frondell scoring the deciding goal through Finnish goaltender Petteri Rimpinen’s legs in the shootout’s eighth round.

Finland, which eliminated the United States in the quarterfinals, couldn’t capitalize on a power play during the 3-on-3 overtime. Rimpinen made 23 saves and his Swedish counterpart, Love Harenstam, 31.

Sweden hasn’t won a WJC title since 2012 and has only done so twice since the official event began in 1977. It lost to the U.S. in the 2024 title game.

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OWATONNA, Minn. — A Minnesota appellate court judge was ordered to serve probation after pleading guilty to driving while drunk.

Renee Worke, age 67, of Owatonna, waived her right to a jury trial on Friday and pleaded guilty to one count of driving with a blood alcohol content above 0.08.

Worke is an elected Minnesota Court of Appeals judge.

She was taken into custody on Nov. 29, after a Steele County Sheriff’s deputy came across a vehicle stuck in a snowbank on the south shoulder of U.S. Highway 14 at the Interstate 35 overpass in Owatonna around 9 p.m.

According to the complaint filed in Steele County District Court, Worke was the only person in the vehicle and told the deputy she wasn’t injured and that she had had a glass of wine two hours prior. Worke was taken to the Steele County Detention Center for sobriety tests. A breath test showed a .16 blood alcohol concentration — twice the legal limit.

Worke was charged with driving while intoxicated and driving with a blood alcohol content of more than .08. The DWI charge was dismissed, and Worke was given one year of probation, a $500 fine and ordered to perform 15 hours of community work service within a year. Worke is ordered to abstain from alcohol for a year under the terms of probation.

Steele County Attorney Robert Jarrett said the case was handled without “consideration of position, status, or potential collateral consequences.” The probation term and conditions for Worke are consistent with how similarly situated first-time DWI offenders with no prior record are handled, Jarrett said.

Worke was appointed to the Minnesota Court of Appeals on June 9, 2005. She has been re-elected to the position in 2006, 2012, 2018 and 2024.

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