Daily Pilot High School Female Athlete of the Week: Aria aims for the top yet again

It was the most dominant women’s water polo team in Olympic history.

Aria Fischer wasn’t necessarily supposed to be a part of it.

Oh, sure, Fischer could be expected to be in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil last summer to watch the 2016 Summer Olympics. But she was expected to be in the stands with her family, cheering on her older sister by two years, Makenzie.

Aria was seen as too young to compete. The previous summer she had success, earning MVP honors while leading Team USA to the gold medal at the 2015 FINA Junior World Championships in Greece. But, while she was contemplating her Olympic dream at the ripe-old age of 16, she was supposed to be just getting ready for her junior year at Laguna Beach High.

Most people seemed to think so, even her own dad Erich, a former Stanford All-American who played for Bill Barnett on the 1992 Olympic men’s team. But Aria ultimately had her own opinion.

“Hey, dad. By the way, I’m actually going to try to make the Olympic team next year.”

“Say what?”

“It caught me off guard,” Erich Fischer admitted. “I knew she was on track to being an Olympian someday ... but I honestly didn’t think 2016 was really realistic at all. I thought 2020 would be her first opportunity, but she really was driven to try and make that 2016 team. She was incredibly focused and dialed in to that goal. I think she shocked a lot of people, and one of those was myself. I was incredibly proud of her. For Aria to do it at 17, I was really blown away by that.”

The youngest player on the team, Aria helped the U.S. earn gold with a dominant run to the title. Team USA outscored its opponents by a combined 73-32 and there were two Fischers on that team, not one.

“I feel like just being able to get the opportunity to be an Olympian was so amazing and exciting,” Aria Fischer said. “And then being able to do it with my sister, it was just 10 times that emotion. It was really special, and it definitely brought us a lot closer. We’ve always been close, but that experience obviously drew us even closer.”

After missing her junior season to train full-time with the national team, Aria is back at Laguna Beach High as a senior for Coach Ethan Damato’s Breakers, trying to help author a similarly dominant run to the CIF Southern Section Division 1 title.

The Stanford-bound center, one of three team captains along with Bella Baldridge and Claire Sonne, is the center of attention. She is the best player on the best high school team in the country. Yet, if it’s possible, Aria Fischer remains humble.

She doesn’t prefer to talk about winning her third CIF Southern Section Division 1 championship for herself. Instead, she mentions doing it for her teammates like Baldridge, Angelique Begay and Sophia Lucas, girls with whom she’s been playing ever since 10-and-under coed water polo.

She doesn’t prefer to talk about how she was a shutdown individual defender as the Breakers won their third Santa Barbara Tournament of Champions title in four years last weekend. She made tough matchups against San Marcos’ Paige Hauschild in the semifinals and Mater Dei’s Grace Thawley in the title game seem easy. Fischer earned tournament MVP honors, but instead, she mentioned how the team defense was great.

“It’s all about family, and about how we’re all playing with each other,” Fischer said. “It shouldn’t matter who gets stats and who’s scoring and who’s making assists. At the end of the day, we all just want to win, and I think that’s a really good culture that we have here at Laguna.

“I get excited when everything comes together perfectly. We’re seeing the extra pass and it’s just good, pretty water polo. You get an adrenaline rush when that happens. It’s been fun so far.”

Indeed, things seem to have come together perfectly so far for the Breakers (15-0), the top-ranked team in Division 1. The closest game so far was that TOC title game against Mater Dei, in which Laguna earned an 11-6 victory.

Fischer has certainly been a catalyst after returning from the FINA Youth World Championships last month in New Zealand, a tournament in which she competed with Laguna junior goalie Thea Walsh. A big “Fisch” in a small pond, she leads the Breakers with 51 goals, just one more than Baldridge, adding 27 assists and 29 steals.

But it is her versatility that has perhaps proved most valuable to Laguna Beach this season. Baldridge, who will be joining Fischer at Stanford, called Aria the most hard-working person she has ever met. Damato, in his 11th season coaching the Laguna girls, called Aria one of the most passionate people he’s ever coached.

“We know she wants it, and I think she brings that passion to our team,” Damato said. “We also have a passionate group around her, as well, and I think it makes for a really fun team. We’ve got a group of girls that really love each other, and I think this season means a lot to our team. Obviously, having Aria back and this group of seniors ... I think it means a lot to them, and to our [nine-player] junior class as well.”

Dad may have doubted his younger daughter’s ability to make the 2016 Olympics, but he has a front-row seat to her dominance in the high school season. For the first time Erich Fischer is serving as an assistant coach with the Laguna Beach girls, along with longtime assistant Trevor Lyle, who is the boys’ head coach.

Midway through the season, the Breakers already have had a lot of success. Aria Fischer is excited, but not content. She knows there will be more tough tests to come, starting this weekend. Laguna Beach plays at No. 7-ranked Corona del Mar on Friday at 5 p.m., before playing host to Mater Dei on Saturday at 2 p.m. The Monarchs moved up into the No. 2 spot in Division 1 after making the TOC title game.

Challenges for sure, but Fischer will be ready to take them on with her teammates.

And don’t forget the last part of that previous sentence.

“I’ve been playing with these girls at Laguna Beach for my whole water polo career,” she said. “It feels really good to be able to come back and have everything fall back into place like it was normal, like I never took a break from playing with them. It took a few weeks to get our chemistry back, but it didn’t long, because we’ve been playing together so much. I was welcomed back by them, and it was a great feeling. I couldn’t imagine playing with anyone else right now. This is my home and my family, and it’s nice to be able to get to play my senior year here.”

She’s back home and ready to go, bringing that Olympic experience that nobody else at the high school level has. And she and her family won’t forget the commitment, the sacrifices that it took to get to Rio.

It’s perhaps something that only a fellow Olympian could understand. Dad certainly does.

“That’s what I’m most proud of,” Erich Fischer said. “Everybody was telling her no, it’s not her time, including her father who was an Olympian. We were saying, ‘You’ll have your shot,’ and she said, ‘No, I think it is my shot,’ and she actually did it.

“She’s always had that determination. Obviously, if she didn’t have that determination, she wouldn’t have realized her Rio dream, that’s for sure.”

Aria Fischer

Born: March 2, 1999

Hometown: Laguna Beach

Height: 6-foot

Sport: Water polo

Year: Senior

Coach: Ethan Damato

Favorite food: Chocolate

Favorite movie: “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”

Favorite athletic moment: Helping the USA women’s water polo team win gold at the 2016 Summer Olympics.

Week in review: Fischer totaled 19 goals, nine assists and 11 steals and earned tournament MVP honors as Laguna Beach won the Santa Barbara Tournament of Champions.