The Fairbanks High School bowling program has expanded to include a separate girls’ coach for the 2018-19 school year. Stephanie Fairchild (left) will coach the Lady Panthers, while Jeff Ungerer will begin his second season as the boys’ coach. Ungerer coached both teams last year.
(Photo submitted)
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The winter sports scene for Fairbanks High School looks to be on the rise for the 2018-19 season.
The numbers of participation are up for girls basketball, the wrestling team has once again achieved varsity status and a second coach has been added for the bowling program.
“We have ten freshman girls who are planning to play basketball,” said athletic director Larry Morris. “Landon (new varsity head coach Fraker) has said that he wants to get younger girls involved with the program.
“We have a decent-sized freshman class this year and those students are involved in multiple sports,” he said. “We’ve also gotten a number of students who came in this year as freshmen from St. John’s and they are also active in sports.”
The wrestling team, which began preseason practice on Friday, has again been elevated to varsity status.
The Panther program has alternated between club and varsity status for several years. After a handful of recent campaigns on the club level, FHS officials moved it to varsity status last spring.
There is a new head coach in James Kasser, who previously served as an assistant coach at Olentangy Orange High School.
“We had between 15 and 18 athletes participate in wrestling last year when we were a club team,” said Morris. “We’re anticipating the same number this year as a varsity program.”
Morris said a full varsity schedule is planned for the upcoming season and added that several junior varsity matches are also scheduled.
Kasser also has coaching experience on the club level and Morris hopes he can further expand the program.
“Wrestling in our area is very strong,” said Morris. “You can’t go in any direction from Marysville without running into a storied program. You have Marysville to the north and Mechanicsburg to the south.
“I know Jonathan Alder has had peaks and valleys, but they’ve had strong wrestlers in the past,” he said. “You also have other very strong wrestling programs in Champaign County.
“We’re hoping that wrestling will mesh with our football program in the coming years.”
The bowling program took on varsity status a year ago under the guidance of first-year head coach Jeff Ungerer.
A chemistry teacher at the high school, Ungerer coached both the boys and girls teams during the 2017-18 season.
This year, the Lady Panthers will have their own coach in Stephanie Fairchild, who is the physical education instructor at the district’s elementary school. Ungerer will remain as the boys coach.
“Our bowling numbers are a little bit higher this year,” said Morris. “By adding a girls coach, we will be able to improve on our supervision of those student-athletes at an off-site location (Dragon Lanes in Marysville). Jeff is very comfortable in splitting up the coaching duties.”
Fairchild played sports when she was a student at Fairbanks High School. She currently coaches the middle school track and field program and formerly served as the middle school athletic director.
“Stephanie has a lot of teaching and coaching experience at Fairbanks,” said Morris.
Ungerer did not have any bowling coaching experience when he took over the program a year ago.
Fairchild also has no experience coaching the sport as she prepares for her first season.
That’s OK with Morris.
“It wasn’t crucial for Stephanie to come in with (PBA legend) Earl Anthony as an uncle,” laughed the athletic director. “She, like Jeff last year, will pick up on the game very well.
“We will have our boys and girls bowling teams competing at the same place at the same time as much as possible,” said Morris. “The only problem is that not every school in the Ohio Heritage Conference has a girls team.”
Morris said he is working on having as complete of a schedule for the girls as possible.
He’s also running into the same problem by fielding a full freshman girls basketball squad.
“Not every school in this area has a girls freshman team,” he said. “We’ve got six games on the freshman girls schedule to date (late last week). If we can add six more for the season, that would be great.”
The boys basketball program numbers 32 players, including 12 freshmen. That will hopefully be a sign of good things to come in the future.
“Our growth will come with a bit of a financial challenge for our athletic department,” said Morris. “There will be travel costs with some additional freshman girls basketball games. There will also be travel costs and entry fees with our wrestling team entering larger events and also continued costs associated with maintaining our wrestling mats.
“Fortunately, basketball is not as expensive as football, because you don’t have as much equipment.”
Even though there may be a rise in some costs, Morris said that’s not always a bad thing.
“It’s good for the school when we have added athletic participation,” he said. “You always want to get more students involved in activities and we always want to conduct our extracurricular activities the right way.
“We always want to do what we can and the best we can to serve our students.”