December 19, 2023
Sometimes when you’re watching your favorite team play and the game isn’t going well, you think, ‘Well, it’s just not their night,’ and you resign yourself to the inevitable. But occasionally, the inevitable becomes the improbable.
When Earlham trailed by 12 points to Van Meter at the end of three quarters last Friday, the ‘inevitable’ conclusion was that they were about to lose their first game of the season. Instead, the Cardinals pulled off an improbable 47-46 win to remain undefeated.
The resilient Cardinals have been finding ways to win all season. Getting it done on the road against a good team was their tour de force—so far.
“Every game this season has been close at half,” said Jeret Petersen. “We knew coming into this, we’ve been in this situation before. We knew what to do. We needed to execute. All we need to do is play as a team and we absolutely did tonight.”
Every player contributed to the effort in multiple ways, but in the end, the spotlight shone on Tanner Morrison. The Cardinals trailed by 1 point with 6.3 seconds left in the game when the senior went to the free throw line for 2 shots. He made them both to put his team up for good.
Morrison always talks about his teammates before himself, but he did have a quick reflection on what it’s like to do something that 99.9% of us never did or will never have a chance to do.
“It feels really good,” he said. “To get put on the line, to have it in your hands, and then to sink those, then have the team celebrate for you—it feels good.”
Van Meter had a distinct size advantage, but the smaller Cardinals did a solid job defending all night. Still, all six Bulldog baskets in the 1st quarter came from the paint. The Cards trailed after 1, 13-12.
The Van Meter defense dominated in the 2nd quarter. Earlham had a difficult time even getting a good look at the basket and made just 2 of 11 field goals in the period. The Bulldogs eased farther ahead, but the Cardinal D was good, too, and they kept the game close. The Cardinals trailed at halftime, 25-16.
Earlham limited Van Meter to just 2 field goals over the first 6 minutes of the 3rd, but they could not cut into the lead much. After Jeret Petersen made a spin move and a short jumper in the lane and Blake Reynolds made a long 3-pointer, the Cards trailed, 32-25, at the 2:30 mark. Van Meter ended the quarter on a 6-1 run, with all three buckets coming from the lane. They led after 3, 38-26.
The Cardinals got right to work—on both ends of the floor—in the 4th quarter. Walker Hale made 2 free throws 49 seconds into the quarter. After a Bulldog turnover, Petersen slashed down the lane, got a bounce pass from Reynolds, and made a layup. The teams traded free throws and the Cards trailed, 40-31, at 5:26. Carter Hohertz came up with a loose ball under the Bulldog basket, raced up court, passed the ball to Morrison in the corner, got it back from him, and swished a long 3-pointer at 5:02. After a defensive stop, Petersen leaped to rebound a miss, released a shot, and the ball went through the hoop before he hit the ground. The Cards trailed, 40-36, at 4:19.
The Cardinal D continued to frustrate the Bulldogs, who missed another shot in the lane, and Petersen snagged the rebound. After a patient set, Reynolds banked in an 8-foot leaner and the Cards trailed by just 2 at 3:39.
Van Meter made 2 free throws on the next possession, but Earlham answered. Petersen rebounded a blocked shot, made another short jumper from the paint, and the Cards trailed, 42-40, at 2:59. The Bulldogs got their one and only field goal of the quarter on their next possession—a layup—to put them up by 4 points with 2:24 left on the clock.
Earlham answered again when Hohertz made another 3-pointer from the right wing. Van Meter led, 44-43, at 2:05. The Bulldogs were fouled while shooting on their next possession and they made 2 free throws to go up by 3. After a Cardinal miss and a Bulldog rebound, Van Meter ran a long set. They had a point-blank shot from the low block, but Morrison blocked it as the shot clock ran out to give the Cardinals the ball back with 40 seconds to go.
On the ensuing Cardinal possession, Hale was 25 feet from the basket on the right wing, found a seam in the Bulldog defense, drove the ball to the hoop for a layup, and the Cards trailed, 46-45, with 25 seconds to go. After an Earlham timeout, the Bulldogs were careless with the ball, Morrison picked off a pass, and he was fouled with 20 seconds to go. Coach Williamson elected to not call a timeout.
“We didn’t want to overthink anything or let Van Meter set anything else up defensively,” he said. “The guys had been making pretty good decisions, so we let them go.”
The Cards inbounded and ran a three-man weave beyond the 3-point arc to run some clock. The Bulldog defense did a good job of pushing the Cards away from lane, but then Morrison was fouled 35 feet from the basket.
With the Cardinals in the bonus, Morrison stepped to the line. Amidst the din and chaos, shooting right into the Van Meter student section, Morrison swished the first shot. After a Van Meter timeout, he came back and did the same thing, and the Cards led by one with 6.3 seconds on the clock.
Van Meter rushed the ball up the floor and found an open man under the basket. Morrison fouled him in the act of shooting with under a second to play. However, he missed both free throws. On the second miss, Hale tapped the ball away to the corner, and the buzzer sounded to end the game.
It had been a frustrating night for the offense for 3 quarters, but the Cardinals never panicked and never deviated from what they wanted to do.
“Just running through our offense, knowing that we have a plan, we don’t look at the scoreboard,” said Morrison. “We just know the plan and that’s what we were trying to get going. It’s a possession at a time. It’s defense to offense every single time.”
Five different Cardinals scored in the 4th quarter. Hohertz and Hale, both non-starters, had clutch points—and Petersen was a man possessed, scoring 7 of his game-high 17 points in the final frame.
“The last few games I haven’t had an extraordinary amount of points,” said Petersen. “But this game, once I hit those first two shots, I felt like I couldn’t miss. And I just kept taking it at them when I had my opportunities.”
Something special is brewing with this bunch of Cardinals. They have talent, for sure, but what has been exceptional about them are all the things that don’t show up on a stat sheet.
“It’s everybody. It’s all of us,” said Morrison. “It’s the bench. It’s the people who are playing. It’s the fans. The student section helps out all the time. We’re each other’s biggest fans. We’re not going to let anyone get down.” The Cardinals moved their record to 6-0. That’s the best start to a season for an Earlham team since the 2008-09 Cardinals won their first 5 games.
Earlham Echo 
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