Notre Dame’s Walton Keys North in Senior Bowl

Shane Walton needed to touch the ball only once to make the biggest play.

The Notre Dame defensive back returned an interception 99 yards for a touchdown in the fourth quarter to help the North win the Senior Bowl, 17-0, on Saturday at Mobile, Ala.

Walton outshined some of college football’s biggest names, picking off Texas quarterback Chris Simms’ pass at the goal line and racing untouched down the left sideline with 9:13 left.

It was the longest return in Senior Bowl history, topping Fred Weary’s 97-yarder in 1998.

Penn State’s Larry Johnson carried 13 times for a game-high 59 yards for the North and was selected the game’s MVP.

The South’s star-studded offense was mostly done in by mistakes, with three turnovers and a missed field goal keeping the North’s shutout intact.

The defense, led by Walton and Penn State’s Michael Haynes, did what nobody could during the regular season: contain Simms, Heisman Trophy winner Carson Palmer of USC and Texas Tech’s Kliff Kingsbury, the nation’s leading passer.

Palmer led the South into North territory on the first three series, coming up empty each time.

He underthrew a pass in the end zone on fourth down on the first possession, and Damon Duval missed a 45-yard field goal on the second.

Then, on a fourth-and-inches play, Talman Gardner couldn’t handle the ball on an end around from the North 40 to end the next try and Palmer’s day.

The South wasted another first-half drive when USC’s Malaefou MacKenzie fumbled at the North 36.

“They’re a good team but we definitely should have scored,” said Palmer, who completed nine of 15 passes for 74 yards before sitting out the second half. “We had four really good opportunities to put some points on the board and we didn’t capitalize on them.”

USC running back Justin Fargas led the South with 31 yards in nine carries. UCLA tight end Mike Seidman, who also played for the South, caught two passes for 19 yards.

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As expected, Washington State defensive tackle Rien Long, the Outland Trophy winner as the nation’s best interior lineman, will skip his senior season and make himself available for the NFL draft.

Winter Sports

Bruno Kernen of Switzerland won a World Cup race for the first time in seven years, capturing a downhill on one of skiing’s most demanding courses at Wengen, Switzerland.

Daron Rahlves of the United States finished eighth and another American, Bode Miller, was 11th.

Austrian Renate Goetschl won a World Cup race for the second consecutive day, edging American Kirsten Clark in the downhill at Cortina D’Ampezzo, Italy.

Goetschl followed up her win in the super-G on Friday with a run of 1:30.74, which was .29 seconds ahead of Clark.

Canada’s Pierre Lueders and Giulio Zardo won a World Cup bobsled race at St. Moritz, Switzerland, with the U.S. team of Todd Hays and Randy Jones finishing second.

Lueders and Annan have 158 points and lead the World Cup standings after five of seven races. Hays and Jones are sixth overall.

Germany’s Sven Hannawald set a hill record during a World Cup ski jump event at Zakopane, Poland, for his third victory this season.

Hannawald won with 286.2 points from jumps of a record 140 meters and 134 meters.

Teenager Travis Cabral put down a nearly flawless final run despite zero-degree weather, winning his second World Cup moguls event of the season and edging Olympic champion Janne Lahtela by nearly a full point at Lake Placid, N.Y.

Cabral, 19, moved up from fifth place with a dynamic run that earned 26.79 points to 25.80 for Lahtela, the 1999 world champ and 2000 World Cup moguls champion.

Miscellany

A fourth Yale University student died from injuries suffered a day earlier when a sports utility vehicle packed with nine friends hit a tractor-trailer on a snowy interstate. Nicholas Grass, 19, of Holyoke, Mass., had helped lead the baseball team to the regional finals as a pitcher in 2001.

State police said the driver of the SUV, Yale junior Sean Fenton, 20, of Newport Beach, was killed along with pitcher Kyle Burnat, 19, of Atlanta and Andrew Dwyer, 19, of Hobe Sound, Fla.

The driver of the tractor-trailer, Armando Salgado, 33, of Gardena was hospitalized in satisfactory condition.

Protesters at the Masters opposing Augusta National Golf Club’s male-only membership might have to comply with stricter public demonstration laws.

Augusta commissioners will be asked Tuesday to approve an updated city ordinance that refines the public demonstration law on the books, said City Attorney Jim Wall.

The amended law requires groups of five or more people to apply for a permit from the sheriff’s department 30 days in advance of the event. No timeline is given under existing law.

Former San Diego State quarterback Jack Hawley was waived by the Avengers, leaving the Arena Football League team with three quarterbacks on its roster. Tony Graziani is the starter, and Matthew Sauk and Ryan Helming are competing to be the backup. The Avengers also signed outside linebacker Damonte McKenzie.

Anna Kozlova is returning to the Olympics, and partner Alison Bartosik is going with her.

Kozlova and Bartosik won the duet competition at the U.S. synchronized swimming Olympic trials at Federal Way, Wash., becoming the first athletes named to the U.S. team for next year’s Athens Games.

The 30-year-old Kozlova, a native of St. Petersburg, Russia, is the sport’s first three-time Olympian.

Australia’s Ian Thorpe won the 200-meter freestyle at a World Cup short-course swim meet at Paris, beating Dutch rival Pieter van den Hoogenband. Thorpe was timed in 1 minute 41.86 seconds and Van den Hoogenband finished in 1:43.16.

Kostya Tszyu retained his undisputed super-lightweight title at Melbourne, Australia, when James Leija was unable to start the seventh round because of an injured right eardrum.

Tszyu, a Russian-born Australian, improved to 30-1-1. Leija, from San Antonio, dropped to 43-6-2.

Artur Grigorian defended his World Boxing Organization lightweight title by winning a majority decision over Matt Zegan at Essen, Germany.