The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Warriors chasing first league title in decades
It’s been 60 years since Fairview has had a championship; this team looks to end drought
Since joining the Patriot Athletic Conference in 2010, Fairview boasts 21 total conference championships among seven sports, including five titles during the 2018 season alone. The girls soccer team has won the PAC championship seven out of the last eight seasons. Both the boys soccer and cross country teams have won back-to-back titles. The volleyball team finally captured a league crown that had eluded it since the program’s inception, earning the Warriors’ first-ever conference championship during the 2017-18 season only to turn around and defend the title a year later. It hasn’t been as easy for the boys basketball program. Hanging in the Fairview High School gym among the many other championship banners is one for the basketball team, but with one stark difference than many of the others. The team has seven total championships to its name displayed on that very banner, but the most recent one came long before any of the players and coaches would be around to see it, and while many of the other teams can claim a title this millennium, the last basketball championship was won in 1962.
The team put together a string of championship seasons in the mid to late 1950s and again in the early ‘60s, winning titles in 1952, ‘53, ‘55, ‘56, ‘57, ‘61 and ‘62. Now, nearly 60 years later, the Warriors are tied for first with Clearview in the PAC Stripes Division with three games left in the regular season. They control their destiny in the quest for the final PAC title before the league disbands next season. “It’s obviously on our mind. It’s hard not to be,” junior Luke Howes said. “But we try to stay focused each game.” Second-year coach Ryan Barry learned a lot in his first season and reevaluated his approach heading into this year after feeling like maybe he got a bit ahead of himself last season. He placed so much emphasis on winning a conference championship that when the Warriors lost their first two PAC games of the season, it felt like there was nothing left to play for with nearly an entire season’s worth of games still on the schedule. “Last year as a first-year head coach I made a big mistake and I put so much emphasis on the conference,” Barry said. “I had ‘1962’ sewn in the back of our jackets and I’m like, ‘Let’s go get it.’ Then we drop a couple early and it’s like well now what are we playing for?” The Warriors finished the 2017-18 season in second place, three games behind three-time defending champion Clearview and with such a strong feeling they’d underachieved based on the level of talent on their roster. With three returning starters, underachieving is not an option for Fairview this season. Howes, a 6-foot-2 junior guard and three-year letter winner, is regarded as one of the top young players in the area. He is averaging 23.0 points per game through 18 games, second in the area only behind Lorain’s AllOhio point guard Devon Grant, and is among the top 10 Morning Journal area players in both rebounds and assists. But it’s his leadership he says has developed the most, allowing him to have more of an impact than ever before. “Freshman year, I was like a little kid,” Howes said. “I was just out there doing my thing. But now...I really try to take control and get us together so we can win. “We have basically three people, me, Martin (Lowry) and Noah(Mesaros), we’ve all got minutes since freshman year. We’ve had a lot of experience. We’re also really good leaders so we’re able to help guys like Marty (Rehor), who this is his first year on varsity, but who’s a tremendous player, and Ethan McQuate, too. So our leadership (has developed).” It’s a change Barry’s noticed as well. Rarely does he have to spend time refocusing his young team, which features four juniors and a sophomore in the starting lineup, because after last season’s early mishaps, everyone is concerned with taking it one game at a time. It’s the only way the Warriors can possibly join the long list of Fairview teams to win a championship this century. “I’ve only had to call their effort out maybe two or three times all year,” Barry said. “They’re doing the right things. They know. They want to win the conference but they know they can’t do that till they win the next one. I know it’s cliché. But if we lose (against Keystone), if we lose to Firelands, then we don’t even have a chance. “But it means a lot to them and it’s important to us. We’d like to make it happen but we’re accomplishing other things outside of that is our hope. We’re looking at a district.”