August 25, 2026
Football
There are only seven Cardinal seniors on the team this season and a large percentage of the roster is made up of underclassmen. While that may bode well for the future, nobody on this year’s team is thinking about that right now. For 2026, the Cardinals should have the talent to make another run at the playoffs.
“We just have the seven seniors,” said head coach Coach Caskey, “but it’s a good seven. I think we’re in good shape. We just need to get game speed under our belt. Scrimmaging has helped, but it’s still not quite game speed. So (the scrimmage against Treynor) will be a good learning experience.”
The Cardinals travelled to Treynor last Friday for a controlled scrimmage. The first team played the first and third quarters and the second and third teams played the second and fourth quarters. The teams played a real, live football game with officials, except the clock ran continuously, officials used a bit of a quick whistle to help avoid injuries, and there were no returns on special teams plays.
Treynor is a perennial Class 1A powerhouse, so they provided a stiff test for the Cards and gave them a chance to self-evaluate.
“Like I told the team, it’s a great learning opportunity,” said Coach Caskey. “We’re trying to learn. We’re trying to get better. We’re trying to find our weaknesses. So when we came in, Sunday as coaches and Monday as a team, we were ready to start working on those things that we know we need to fix.”
Over the year, the Cardinals have had a long list of running backs whose names fans probably remember. All those guys ran behind excellent offensive linemen, whose names probably don’t get mentioned as much as they should. Earlham has had a history of being good in the trenches. They should be again, this season, but it might look a little unusual.
“It will be a completely different look on the offensive line,” said Coach Caskey. “In the past, we’ve averaged 230, 240 (pounds) and 6’1”, 6’2” across the board. And now this year we go from 5’9”, 185 to 6’4”, 220. We’re just all over the board, but it’s the most athletic offensive line I’ve had. And when they’re all there, it’s the quickest offensive line I’ve had. And they’ve gotten two years of JV under their belt to come in and play varsity. So they’re ready. It’s just a matter of catching them up to the speed of the game.”
The most likely starting line will consist of seniors Keegan Long and Harvey Burger, juniors Chris Ridgeley and Colton Nix, and sophomore Landry Hollander. The tight end will be Austen Rodgers.
Coach Caskey didn’t include Long’s measurables in his quick assessment of his O-line, but the big, athletic senior is 6’2” and pushing 300 pounds. Long is especially agile for that size and he will anchor—figuratively and literally—both the offensive and defensive lines.
Freshman Conway DeGroff and sophomore JD Janssen have been good in the pre-season, and they should also get playing time on the O-line.
Senior Brady Reynolds is back for his second season as quarterback. He’ll be joined in the backfield by a rotation of Konner Keller, Cole Eitel, Gabe Lochner, Cash Eitel, and Xander McNeal in Coach Caskey’s version of the wing-T offense.
“We don’t have that guy, yet, who can carry the ball 30 times a game,” said Coach Caskey. “So right now it’s going to be four guys, four different guys who carry the ball. One game, depending on what the defense gives us, it might be the fullback. The next game it might be a wingback. The next game it might be the tailback or the quarterback.”
Having ‘that guy’ in the backfield certainly comes in handy for a play caller when your team just has to have 4 or 5 yards. Without one, for now, Coach Caskey will rely on execution by his players—and perhaps more carries by Reynolds. He had just 40 rushing attempts last season.
“The quarterback has to carry the ball sometimes just to make the fakes mean more,” he said. “Because if he goes through the same motion every time and never carries it, then they forget about him. And pretty soon, he’s a non-factor. They say one good fake is worth 2 blocks. So we have to get our guys faking the ball, so the defense doesn’t know who’s got it.”
Coach Caskey will also make tweaks to the offense from week-to-week to make the Cards more difficult to scout and keep defenses guessing.
“We’re going switch up our formations,” he said. “One week, if we run a play from a formation, the next week we’re going to run it from a different formation and just keep switching up. Everybody knows that we have always run all our strength plays to the right and counters and everything else go to the left—and we just didn’t care. Well now this year we’re changing up formations to try to move people around a little bit, just try to make it easier to find gaps to run in and maybe isolate some people in the passing game.”
Targets in the passing game will be Rodgers, Lockner, and juniors Bishop Hammen and Hayden Ealy.
Long, Nixt, Burger, and junior Chris Ridgely—with Rodgers rotating in—should be a good defensive line. Cole Eitel, Keller, and McNeal are part of an athletic linebacking corps.
From a coaching standpoint, the defense will truly be a team effort.
“We have 8 coaches, and when we meet, we all talk through defense,” said Coach Caskey. “We have two guys in charge of each individual group and they let us know who they think our starters are at that position. And then I get the final say, but I trust my coaches to decide what they think, and then who are the backups to each position. So they’ve all got that ironed out on Sundays. We come in on Mondays and we post the lineup based on changes, or if it stayed the same, and then we start practicing based on that.”
Coach Caskey is assisted by Brian Sheffield, Cory Thompson, Kaden Howard, Drew Evans, James Gulley, Joe Jansen, and Dawson Madren.
Volleyball
No Earlham team will have a fresher look this fall than the volleyball Cards—from the players to the coaching staff. When long-time head coach Mindy Harskamp resigned after last season, her top assistant, Cameryn Boyle, was the easy choice to take over the reigns of the program. This will be her first varsity head coaching job, but Boyle, a 2018 Earlham graduate, knows the program and knows the game. The job description for a head coach is certainly longer and more complex than for an assistant, but she’s ready.
“The administrative stuff is actually what I expected it to be,” said Coach Boyle. “But there’s more coordination than I’ve ever done before. I’ve never had assistant coaches that weren’t high school students. I’ve never had people that I could just send over there and run part of practice, and over here and run another part, and then I oversee it all. I’m still trying to figure out how to get practice plans to everybody; both coaches, 30 kids, three teams; making sure varsity gets what they need while JV gets what they need.”
Just like any young professional in the first year of any job, Boyle will learn as she goes. Developing a coaching ‘style’ takes time, but she has a good start on that part of the process.
“Mindy was my coach forever and then I was an assistant behind her,” said Coach Boyle. “So I feel like I took a lot of things from her. I would say I have very high expectations, and I will support kids 100% of the way. I want them to be overly aggressive. I want them to be fast. I want them to push themselves and then I will be the one to pull them back if we need to. But I feel like high energy—my girls do that for me. I’m a little bit more reserved. I like to sit back and watch and let them play. But I want to be faster at making adjustments during the game. I want to change something before the other team catches on to what we’re doing.”
Coach Boyle has a handy sounding board in her dad, Coach Chris Caskey. The two have a lot more to talk about than just coaching, but it certainly is a topic at times.
“We do talk about it. But when it’s about volleyball, he just kind of shakes his head,” she said with a laugh. “But no, it’s been nice. I’ve learned from him, watching him, whether I like everything he does or not. But it’s been really helpful for me. And I see some things he does, and I’m like, ‘I’m going to add that to my practice.’ And I see other things he does, and maybe that’s not my style. But I feel like a lot of what he does is about high expectations, because if you don’t have that, I think you will fall short.”
There will be many new faces on the floor for the Cardinals, too. Several players have varsity experience, but some of them didn’t get the playing time they probably deserved because they were behind a strong 2025 class that made the lineup difficult to crack. Seniors and underclassmen alike are eager to take on new roles and talented enough to avoid a dreaded ‘rebuilding year.’
“They are excited,” said Coach Boyle. “They absolutely are. We had a senior meeting at the beginning of the season and I told them that I don’t like the term ‘rebuilding year.’ That just means that we didn’t try very hard with our JV. They’ve been working on the JV team, and some of them on varsity last year. They’ve been working all club season to prepare for this. They worked all summer. They’re definitely ready and now it’s just about getting them the reps and the experience. The senior group is fun. They are very happy kids. They cheer for everybody. It’s so much fun. I think I laugh more than anything else when I’m around them, but they’ve been really good with us and with the underclassmen, too.”
The six Cardinal seniors are Piper Koberg, Peyton Tiemeyer, Shilyn Terrell, Ava Smith, Ava Goodrich, and Myliha Terrell.
Koberg was the team’s best hitter last season with 257 kills, which was 6th best in the conference. She has improved steadily over the years and is poised for a strong senior season.
“She is a powerhouse,” said Coach Boyle. “And the best part about her is that she’s been working over the winter and during the summer on if the set is not where it needs to be, where she can’t be a powerhouse, how else can she score? She scored (at last Thursday’s scrimmage in Avoca) on some of that off-speed stuff that she’s been working on. And so now she’s kind of become a dual threat, I think.”
Junior Eden Forcht was second on the team with 153 kills. She’s a whirlwind of energy and emotion who expects a lot out of herself as an athlete—and usually gets it. At times last season, she perhaps played a little too fast.
“She’s not as amped up this season,” said Coach Boyle. “She’s kind of slowed herself down defensively so that she can speed up on offense. She’s not wasting energy on the back line anymore, which I think will help her in the long run when we have to play five games in a day. She is becoming an all-around player like we want her to be, and I think she’ll continue to do so.”
Shilyn Terrell, an excellent all-around athlete, started all 36 matches last season. She led the team in blocks (18) and was 4th in kills (118).
“Shilyn’s ready to go. She is ready to play,” said the coach. “She has become a powerhouse more consistently. Sometimes you didn’t know whether the ball was going to hit the back wall or somebody in the bleachers. But she is in control now more than ever. She’s jumping out of the gym.”
Tiemeyer played in all 36 matches last season and was a solid contributor on the back row. She will start the year as the Cardinals’ libero.
“She is more consistent this year, like all our seniors,” said Coach Boyle. “They are just more consistent this year than they were last year because they’re getting the reps without people in front of them.”
Last season, the Cardinals had 735 assists as a team. Only 136 of those were by players who are still on the roster. There’s a gap to be filled there, and tasked to do that will be setters Goodrich and junior Zoey Groves.
“They will share the setting roles to start,” said the coach. “We’ve been focusing on consistency. They’ve played JV for a long time and we’re running a fast offense this year and it’s going to take a while. Court awareness in a varsity level game is different than JV. They need more varsity level reps and hopefully in next couple weeks they get what they need.”
Coach Boyle is assisted by Hannah Mankin, a former Cardinal standout who graduated in 2012, and Emma Braun, who was an excellent player at Van Meter—class of 2021.
Cross Country
Most of these pre-season cross country stories over the years have sounded similar and have been quite simple—the Cardinals have been really good in the past and they should be again this season. Cue up that narrative again for 2026.
The boys will return 4 of their 5 top runners from a team that finished 4th at state last year. The Iowa Association of Track Coaches (IATC) has them ranked #2 in Class 1A in their pre-season ranking.
The Cardinal girls don’t look quite as formidable on paper as the boys, but they return 3 of their top 7 from last year’s 4th-place state meet finish, plus a transfer student who was the #3 runner for 6th-place Martensdale-St. Marys. The Cards are #20 in the IATC pre-season ranking.
There’s a tendency to look at Earlham’s cross country program and assume it has somehow become a factory, simply producing good runners year after year. But cross country doesn’t work that way. Every team is different, every season brings a different mix of talent and experience, and every runner must decide how much he or she is willing to put into it. What has remained consistent in Earlham are the standards. The bar has been set high, and year after year, kids have stepped up and reached it.
This season, ‘focus’ will be critical for both the boys’ and girls’ teams for them to reach their potential
“They’re close,” said co-head coach Dion Braet. “And they’re close enough that we can bring them in when we need to. When it’s time to lock in, they can do that.”
The numbers in the program are down overall. There are 11 boys out (1 of those may not be able to run at all due to injury) and only 6 girls. Hopefully the lower numbers are a blip on the radar and not a trend.
Seniors David Nichols, Dawson Braet, and Landon Sheffield, and sophomore Andrew Van Zee will be a formidable core for the Cardinal boys.
Nichols finished 8th at the state meet in 2025. When healthy, he’s a machine. He’s had a few health issues over the summer, though, and it may be a while before he’s in top form.
Braet has been a key member of the Cardinals since he was a freshman—and not just because he’s the coach’s kid. He should have an excellent season.
“I think that happens with boys—they just naturally get stronger,” said Coach Braet. “He works in the weight room and he doesn’t miss a run very often. It probably helps that he gets up and sees me, so he knows he has to go. He and Landon were the most consistent runners in the summer for the boys, so I think that’s just going to help them have a good season.”
Van Zee split time with football last fall, but this season he’s only out for cross country. Once he got into running shape last year, it helped the team really take off. Last track season, he raced like he simply hated to lose.
“He has that mentality, yeah,” said Coach Braet. “Just beat the people around you. And he likes to run in the front, which not everybody does, so that doesn’t bother him. I like that.”
A handful of Cardinals will have a chance to be the #5 runner.
On the other hand, the Cardinal girls will only have 5 runners to start the season.
Junior Kinsley Canoyer and senior Shea Rodgers are the top two returning Cardinals. They’ve never had to lead the way for the team before, so they will be stepping into a leadership role, as well. They both ran well at state last year, finishing 78th and 85th respectively.
Freshman Sophia Mutchler and 8th grader Gracyn Nisley should step right into the lineup and contribute immediately. Senior Lilah Aubert was the Cards’ #7 runner at state last season.
Senior Penelope Wearmouth is the transfer student from Martensdale-St. Marys. She’s nursing an injury right now, but should be able to run soon. She finished 81st at state last season.
Teams graduate seniors every year, but they don’t often lose a coach. Marty Dalton was Coach Braet’s co-coach for several years, but he took a job a few months ago outside of education. He will be missed, but new co-head coach Kaitlyn Lindholm is more than capable. “Marty has a good eye for, ‘Oh, they’re doing this, they need to do that,’ and making adjustments on the fly,” said Coach Braet. “But Kate is really good at that and just this summer I feel like she’s really stepped into that role. So I think it’s helped me to have a different perspective.”
Earlham Echo 
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