Daily Pilot High School Athlete of the Week: Young Fisher grows up

In Caedmon Fisher’s bedroom is an article from three years ago, when Fisher helped the Costa Mesa Aquatics Club 12-and-under boys’ water polo team win gold in the classic division at the USA Water Polo Junior Olympics.

The article has meaning to Fisher, who shined in that championship game at Mater Dei High with four goals scored. His picture is featured in the story, a 12-year-old kid with a determined look on his face who is shooting a fierce lefty shot.

“I used to read it a lot,” Fisher said. “It makes me want to win another gold medal or at least get first place in something else, like CIF or even another Junior Olympic gold medal.”

A funny thing happened to Fisher over the last three years. The little kid who used to dominate opponents from the center position turned into a 5-foot-11 high school sophomore at Costa Mesa High.

Cody and Dustin Serrano have seen the rise in his game and his height. The twins are both club coaches with CMAC and the boys’ water polo coaches at their alma mater. Cody just laughs when asked about the transformation.

“He was tiny then,” Cody Serrano said. “He was so tiny then, and he literally got so big within these last two or three years. As a freshman, he put a lot of time in the weight room. This year, it’s going to put a really big, strong player to out-muscle him.”

There’s two words for that, and they are “hard work.” Fisher has indeed put in the work since starting to play water polo in the third grade, when his parents signed him and his older brother Corbin up for water polo. At the time, CMAC was just beginning, after Costa Mesa High opened its 50-meter Olympic-size pool and aquatics complex in October, 2010.

The Fishers had never played water polo before that. But Caedmon and Corbin, who is now a senior for the Mustangs, both joined the club program on the same day.

“My parents kind of just told me that I was playing,” Caedmon Fisher said. “I didn’t like that too much. They made me stay in it for just enough time to fall in love with the sport.”

The accolades started to come. Caedmon was indeed a leader on the Junior Olympics gold medal team, which also featured his current Costa Mesa High teammates like Augie Cunningham, Teak Zachary and goalie Kevin Johnson. The next year, Fisher participated in the USA Water Polo Olympic Development Program, making the Southern Pacific Zone team. He also trained with the national team for his age group for about two months, before being cut.

“Even though I got cut, it made me realize what I had to work on,” Caedmon Fisher said. “They told me the main thing I had to work on was my speed. I wasn’t fast enough.”

Fisher knows he’s gotten a lot stronger since then. He still does strive to be faster, but don’t tell that to the players over at Brea Olinda High.

Fisher blitzed the Wildcats for a career-high 11 goals on Sept. 15, as the Mustangs earned a 19-15 victory. The Daily Pilot Athlete of the Week has been on quite a scoring spree for Costa Mesa, which improved to 4-1 after upsetting Crespi, 14-9, on Thursday. Fisher had eight goals in that game, and has 32 goals for the season.

Cody Serrano said it was only a matter of time until Fisher had an offensive explosion like he did against Brea Olinda. The most impressive thing to the coach was that nearly all of the goals came on outside shots, instead of on the counterattack.

“He can score from anywhere in the pool,” Cody Serrano said. “It doesn’t matter what position he’s playing at ... He has every tool in his arsenal. He’s just a great offensive threat.”

Fisher is also a leader for Costa Mesa, though the three team captains are his older brother, Cunningham and senior center Jacob Petersen. Caedmon Fisher said he was surprised that his offensive role has increased so much from when he was a freshman last year.

The difference is confidence, he said. He’s honest in his assessment of the team, which wants to make a deep run in the CIF Southern Section Division 3 playoffs this year after losing a first-round heartbreaker at Montebello, 11-10, last year.

“I don’t know,” Fisher said. “[I’m scoring so many goals] just because some of the players on our team don’t have the confidence to shoot, even though they have good enough shots. Most of the players on the team easily have as good of a shot as I do. They just don’t have the confidence that I do, and that’s what we need to work on.”

Caedmon credits Corbin, a selfless player who sees the pool extremely well, for setting him up for many of his scoring opportunities. He said he’s also stoked to be playing with his longtime friends, building up the Costa Mesa program just as they have built up the CMAC program from the ground up.

The Serrano twins, in their third season in charge of the Mustangs water polo program, also have been happy to see that transformation.

“It’s pretty awesome,” Cody Serrano said. “I’ve seen them grow since they were little, and now they’re juniors and sophomores. They’re quite a dynamic team, and they have great chemistry in games because they’ve been playing with each other for so long. It’s fun to watch. We changed the dynamic of the program here at Mesa. It’s kind of mine and Dustin’s team now, instead of the old regime with Coach [Tim] Postiff and Coach Justin [Taylor]. Those kids have kind of moved out, and now I’ve got the team that I’ve been training for the last three years.

“It’s been fun. I had a great two years prior with the players that we had in the past, but this team is what me and Dustin have foreseen the program to look like.”

With Caedmon in the program for two more years, the future appears bright. Can the Mustangs even top perennial Orange Coast League champion Laguna Beach for a league title? Caedmon said the Mustangs can challenge the Breakers, who are the top-ranked team in CIF Southern Section Division 2, this season.

“I feel like this is our year to shine,” he said. “This is the best team that I’ve played on.”

The challenge he has for himself is to try out for another USA Water Polo national team after the high school season ends. He wants to make the Cadet (16-and-under) national team. The SoPac Zone team tryouts are in December, with the National Team Selection Camp to follow next spring.

“That would be very fun,” Caedmon Fisher said. “That’s what I’ve been working for this season.”

It would be another good story.

And there’s still room in that bedroom for more articles.

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Caedmon Fisher

Born: Feb. 21, 2001

Hometown: Costa Mesa

Height: 5-foot-11

Weight: 186 pounds

Sport: Water polo

Year: Sophomore

Coach: Cody Serrano

Favorite food: Sushi

Favorite movie: “Stepbrothers”

Favorite athletic moment: Making the USA Water Polo Olympic Development Program zone team in eighth grade.

Week in review: Fisher scored five goals in a 15-7 win over Yorba Linda on Sept. 13, then a career-high 11 goals in a 19-15 win over Brea Olinda on Sept. 15.