OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) — Teenager Olivia Chisholm scored her first goal in the 39th minute and AFC Toronto went on to win the Northern Super League's Diana B. Matheson Cup championship with a 1-0 victory over the Montreal Roses.
Toronto finished first in the standings last season but fell to the Vancouver Rise in the league's first championship game. This season Toronto advanced to the title game by downing Ottawa 8-2 on aggregate in the two-leg semifinals.
“I mean, obviously last year didn’t go our way, so this year means so much,” said Toronto midfielder Nikayla Small. “Shoutout to Olivia Chisholm for scoring that beautiful goal because that’s what really got us here today.”
Chisholm, 17, took a pass from Lauren Rowe and beat Roses goalkeeper Gabrielle Lambert from the middle of the box.
“I saw Lauren had the ball, and she took a bit of a bigger touch,” Chisholm said. “But I know with her speed that she was going to get there, and their whole backline kind of just dropped off so I knew that the space was there for me. And as it left my foot I kind of had a good feeling that it was going to go in, and then it did.”
The Roses finished atop the standings and won the Supporters Shield, riding a 12-match unbeaten streak going into the final at TD Place in Ottawa.
Montreal advanced to the final with a 5-2 victory on aggregate against Vancouver.
See AP’s full soccer coverage here
AFC Toronto Shelina Zadorsky, front left, and Sabrina D'Angelo, front right, lift the the Diana B. Matheson Cup along side wrestler Trish Stratus, front centre, after defeating Montreal Roses FC in NSL finals action in Ottawa, on Saturday, Nov. 14, 2026. (Keito Newman/The Canadian Press via AP)
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — SpaceX’s Starship made a triumphant return to Earth on Saturday, caught in midair by giant mechanical arms where its journey began 22 hours earlier.
It was the grand finale that Elon Musk and his team hoped for — the first-ever capture of a Starship flying back from space. But with the first-stage booster exploding shortly after Friday’s liftoff from Texas, the company fell short of its desired double catch, still the goal for accelerating moon and Mars travel.
Wreckage remained in the Gulf of Mexico, cordoned off by buoys, as the stainless steel, bullet-shaped spacecraft lowered itself upright at the launch pad.
The dramatic, sci-fi-like capture helped blot out the booster’s messy miss. Cameras panned the spacecraft up and down as it hung high above the ground, supported by the arms of the launch tower.
“Can you believe it?” SpaceX commentator Dan Huot shouted, dragging out each word. “Look at her! Baby, she’s back!”
Calling it an “epic day,” Musk later ascended the launch tower to take up-close video with his phone. He even hugged the spacecraft. “Looks great,” he reported via X.
SpaceX officials said Saturday’s catch demonstrates the full reusability of Starship, crucial for rapid and low-cost recycling. Although Friday’s booster recovery failed, the company had already made three previous booster catches, validating the technique.
NASA welcomed Saturday’s news. The space agency is paying billions of dollars for Starship to land Artemis astronauts on the moon later this decade and help build a permanent lunar base. Musk’s ambitions are even grander: He wants to launch a fleet of Starships to build a city on Mars.
“It was almost magic,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said via X. “Making more believers by the day ... one step closer to (emojis of the moon and the U.S. flag)."
The world’s largest and most powerful rocket — a 407-foot (124-meter) behemoth — blasted off late Friday afternoon from SpaceX’s Starship base near the U.S.-Mexican border. Separating neatly from its booster before things went awry, the upper-stage spacecraft soared into orbit and released 26 advanced Starlink satellites.
Starship continued circling the world 165 miles (265 kilometers) up, with live views of itself and Earth streaming down via Starlink. The spacecraft completed 14 laps around Earth, outshining the previous mission’s one to two laps.
It was SpaceX’s 15th flight of a full-scale Starship since 2023 and its only second trip to orbit.
SpaceX reported that everything on the spacecraft, including its vital heat shield, appeared to work well.
As for the booster, SpaceX’s Kate Tice said its engines stopped firing too soon on the way back down. The booster’s guidance system sensed it wasn’t in the right position and automatically initiated the watery detour and self-destruction. Engineers are still investigating the cause.
SpaceX expects to begin launching Starships from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center within the next few months. That is the starting point for NASA’s next Artemis mission, which will skip the moon and remain in orbit around Earth for lunar lander practice.
Artemis III’s four astronauts will attempt to dock their capsule with not only Starship but Blue Origin’s Blue Moon. The two companies will take turns delivering crews to the lunar surface. NASA is targeting as soon as 2028 for Artemis IV, humanity’s first moon landing since the Apollo era more than half a century ago.
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SpaceX's mega rocket Starship returns to its launch pad to be caught by the launch tower following a test flight from Starbase, Texas, Saturday, Nov. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
SpaceX's mega rocket Starship returns to its launch pad to be caught by the launch tower following a test flight from Starbase, Texas, Saturday, Nov. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
SpaceX's mega rocket Starship returns to its launch pad to be caught by the launch tower following a test flight from Starbase, Texas, Saturday, Nov. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
SpaceX's mega rocket Starship returns to its launch pad to be caught by the launch tower following a test flight from Starbase, Texas, Saturday, Nov. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
SpaceX's mega rocket Starship returns to its launch pad to be caught by the launch tower following a test flight from Starbase, Texas, Saturday, Nov. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
SpaceX's mega rocket Starship lifts off for a test flight from Starbase, Texas, Friday, Nov. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
