It wasn’t that long ago that Gage Timm and Ben Wesolowski spent their Friday nights playing for the Shawano and Wittenberg-Birnamwood football teams.
While they never had a chance to play for a high school state championship with the Hawks and Chargers, both players can now say they’re members of a national championship team.
Timm and Wesolowski suited up for the University of Wisconsin-River Falls on Jan. 4 in the Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl in Canton, Ohio, the NCAA’s national championship game for Division 3 programs.
The Falcons capped a 14-1 season with a 24-14 win over North Central, the defending national champion. The Illinois team had also won national titles following the 2019 and 2022 seasons.
Timm, who played high school football in Shawano, stood out for the Falcons’ defense; the senior linebacker finished with 13 tackles, a pair of sacks and a fumble recovery. Wesolowski, a junior wide receiver who played at Wittenberg-Birnamwood, had one catch for 12 yards.
They aren’t the only area players on the Falcons’ roster. Shawano’s Jack Dietz is a freshman offensive lineman, while Mitchell Kallies, from Oconto Falls, is a junior defensive lineman.
Timm makes his mark
Timm was part of a UW-River Falls defense that held the Cardinals scoreless in the second half after North Central had taken a 14-0 lead.
“I would say the biggest thing was everyone on the team doing their job,” he said. “Plays just came my way more than other people. Without everyone doing their job, I wouldn’t be able to do my job. On the fumble recovery, the quarterback and running back weren’t on the same page. It was just a lucky thing for me.”
North Central was playing for a national championship for the sixth year in a row and came into the game with a 14-0 record and a 29-game winning streak.
The Falcons, on the other hand, were playing in the Division 3 postseason for the first time since 1996.
“One of the things that our coach talks about a lot for the teams we play is what he calls logo teams,” Timm said. “When some teams play certain teams, they see the logo on the helmet and don’t play how they normally play. That was a big message going into the game: playing our brand of football, no matter what. It doesn’t matter that they’ve been there.”
North Central took a 14-0 lead, but the Falcons answered in the second quarter with a field goal and Kaleb Blaha’s 13-yard touchdown pass to Blake Rohrer that cut the deficit to 14-10 at halftime.
Blaha gave the Falcons the lead for good with a 7-yard touchdown run in the third quarter. He added a 12-yard run with just under nine minutes to go in the game to cap the scoring.
He finished the game with 291 passing yards and 128 rushing yards to finish the season with 6,189 yards, which broke Joe Burrow’s all-time NCAA total of 6,039 yards during the 2019 season.
Timm said he knew the Falcons could have a special season following wins over UW-Whitewater and UW-La Crosse.
“They were both ranked (in the) top 10, and we were ranked one behind one of them,” he said. “Once we blew out top-10 teams, we knew we had something special, and we could get in the playoffs and make a run.”
River Falls, La Crosse and Whitewater compete in the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, along with UW-Oshkosh, the only team to defeat the Falcons during the regular season.
“I think we had five teams ranked in the top 25 at one point,” Timm said, of the WIAC. “You’re playing good teams every week, and you have to be on your A game. That really helps because we’re playing teams that are good enough to be in the playoffs.”
Position change
Wesolowski played quarterback in high school for the Chargers but switched to wide receiver after arriving in River Falls.
He headed to college thinking he might have a shot at playing quarterback, but those plans changed once he met Blaha.
“I’ve been with him for a long time,” he said. “I started out in the quarterback room, so we were in the same room for two years. He’s such a good dude, the most selfless dude ever. You get that good, you’d think that he’s a little cocky, but he’s not like that at all.”
Wesolowski spent his freshman season on the sidelines watching Blaha on the field.
“They said they don’t want to waste another year of me just watching quarterbacks,” he said. “That’s when I switched (to wide receiver), and I’m loving it. I hadn’t played receiver since third grade.”
The switch was not difficult, according to Wesolowski.
“I think it came natural, because when you’re a quarterback, you know what you want your receivers to do. I was in the quarterback system for two years, so I know what I want my receivers to do. I try and do that to help Blaha.”
Blaha is a senior, but Wesolowski isn’t sure where he’ll fit in for his senior season.
“I’ve been getting pretty comfortable at receiver now,” he said. “We’ll have to see what the coaches think. I haven’t had my end-of-the-year meeting, and there’s a lot of decisions to make.”
Wesolowski said Wittenberg-Birnamwood’s program helped prepare him for football at the college level.
“When I was in high school, I played for great coaches like Bernard Holsey and Jason Rieck,” he said. ‘They made me want to keep playing. Those coaches gave me a love for the game.”
The COVID pandemic in 2020 helped Wesolowski become a better athlete.
“I was a skinny sophomore, and one of my buddies got a weight room in his garage and we lifted for two, three hours a day,” he said. “I became an actual athlete and wasn’t a scrawny kid out there. Get in the weight room and start working. That’s all you can do.”
River Falls reaction
The team returned to River Falls the day after the game.
“There were people lining Main Street when our buses came back,” Timm said. “The community’s always been great in supporting us. The fans were out and about in the playoff run, especially in the cold. It’s always windy at our field. We had a lot of fans at the game — a lot more than North Central had, and they were a closer team.”
“The coolest part for most of us is seeing the alums and community members so happy,” Wesolowski said. “We came home to a parade, and there were thousands of people welcoming us home. Even at the game, our stands were five times more filled than theirs. This program hasn’t had a lot of success, so we’re winning for a lot of people. We knew we were winning for a lot more than just us: We were winning for the community.”
UW-River Falls’ coaching staff recruited Timm and Wesolowski.
Timm is majoring in exercise and sports science, while Wesolowski is wrapping up a business management degree and is also studying professional sales.
“They had the major I wanted, and football is just a bonus,” Timm said. “My freshman year was the year after COVID. We went 9-2 my freshman year and seven wins the last two years.”
“I thought we had a great team last year, but we got the injury bug,” Wesolowski said. “We had three starters — one being Kaleb Blaha — out for the season. We knew if we could stay healthy and stay focused that we would make a deep run. In the WIAC, it’s playing for the love of the game. There’s not a lot of money involved — just a bunch of tough-nosed dudes that love playing football, I guess.”
While Timm’s football-playing days are over, Wesolowski is already thinking about next season.
“It’s already started,” he said. “We’re trying to repeat. We’re returning a lot of pieces, a lot of key guys. There’s (weight) lifting every morning. There’s no going out and doing normal college stuff like most kids do, because we have to get up and lift at 7 the next morning. It’s not football 24/7 year-round, but you’re doing something for football. If you’re not going all year, there is someone else in the conference that’s going all year that wants it more.”
