Earlham Echo

September 16, 2025

Late in the 4^th quarter of the Cardinals’ 42-7 beatdown of Panorama at home late Friday, most of the starters were out of the game. But as the clock wound down, many of them were still grinding, working on something they knew was a weakness. They were practicing singing the school song.

“I personally don’t really have a clue of what it is,” said Josh Winey, “but I was trying to get it down before we went up there.”

After the post-game handshake with the Panthers, Winey and his teammates stood in front of the grandstand and sang to the fans. Their rehearsal didn’t help much—the song still needs work.

The fans cheered anyway, of course, but they were probably still giddy from the Cardinals’ on-field performance. All of the team’s units were good and several Cardinals stood out for their individual efforts. But no one shone brighter than Winey, who had the football equivalent of a hat trick, scoring four touchdowns in three different ways. Showcasing his speed and moves straight out of a video game, he had two rushing TDs, scored on an interception return, and returned a punt for a TD. 

“I try to use my speed as much as possible and get to the outside,” said the senior. “I know that I’m quite a bit faster than most people. Not the fastest, but fast enough. And I really like the spin move. It always works for me. I’ve gotten pretty good at it. It helps me break tackles a lot.”

The Cardinal defense forced a 3-and-out to open the game and the offense had the ball at midfield. Quarterback Brady Reynolds capped a 9-play drive with a 5-yard TD run. After the PAT kick by Chris Ridgely, the Cards led, 7-0, 3-and-a-half minutes into the game.

The Panthers got into Cardinal territory with their next drive, but Jaxen Speedling ended that when he intercepted a deflected pass.

The Earlham offense sputtered over their next four drives, though, causing some frustration and tension along the Cardinal sideline. That eased a bit when the defense came through. Panorama had the ball near midfield when Winey intercepted a pass at the Earlham 40 yard line. He ran up field for about 10 yards, then cut to the Cardinal sideline. He turned on the jets and found clear sailing for the touchdown.

The feat was a bit of a good karma moment for Winey.

“I had a pick-6 last week, but it got called back because of a penalty,” he said. “So I think that’s my first pick six. It felt great.”

The offense got rolling in the 2^nd half with an impressive drive, starting from their own 2-yard line. Runs by Konner Keller and Winey gave the Cards some breathing room. Reynolds then scrambled and ran for 33 yards, and a personal foul call on the Panthers moved the ball to the Panorama 34. Four plays later, Reynolds ran for 7 yards on 4^th and 2, and the Cardinals called their final timeout at the 19. After a penalty moved the ball back 5 yards, Reynolds passed to Speedling, who ran to the 4. Earlham hurried to the line and spiked the ball to stop the clock with 32 seconds left in the half. Another Cardinal penalty moved the ball back to the 14, but Reynolds then threw a slant to Blaine Tiedemann, who dragged a defender into the end zone for the score.

The Cards led at halftime, 21-0.

The Cardinals opened the 2^nd half with another scoring drive. Starting at their own 37, the offense ran the ball 5 times to move it to the Panther 38. Winey finished the job. He ran off tackle right, then bounced around traffic to the Panther sideline, and scored on another long jaunt.

The Panthers got their first touchdown of the game after an 8-play, 5-and-half minute drive, and trailed, 28-7. But the Cardinals struck right back. Winey scored again, capping a 10-play, 65-yard drive with 7-yard run. The Cards led, 35-0, at 11:55 in the 4^th.

There was probably no need for any more nails in the Panther coffin, but Winey provided one more—just in case—a few minutes later. Showcasing his spin move at least a couple of times, Winey returned a punt 55 yards for the Cardinals’ final touchdown.

Defensively, the Cards allowed just 70 rushing yards (3 ypc). Mostly due to the scrambling ability of quarterback Cruz Randall, the Panthers did have occasional success in the passing game. But after Blaine Vanderheiden picked him off late in the 4^th quarter, the Cards had their third interception.

Randall’s mobility forced the Cardinal defensive backs to cover their receivers for longer, but Earlham was mostly solid in coverage.

“Covering is one thing I’ve been struggling with these past two weeks,” said Winey. “So I was really focusing on it this week in practice and making sure to stay deep. That helped a lot, just staying deep. Staying behind the guy and breaking on the ball as fast as possible.”

Winey finished with 133 yards on 19 carries. Reynolds rushed for 54 yards and Keller had 46. The Cardinals rushed for 317 yards (5.9 ypc) as a team. Xander McNeal led the Cards with 7.5 tackles, 6 solo. Ridgley was 6-6 on his PATs. This Friday, the Cardinals travel to the Jungle in Madrid to take on the Tigers for their Homecoming. Madrid is 2-1 and the #3 Class A team according to BCMoore. The Cards are #21 in that scale.