ELLINGTON—Camryn Fisher, the junior pitcher for Ellington High, threw her coach a prediction before Saturday’s non-conference showdown against Brookfield.
No walks and a two-hitter, she prognosticated.
While Fisher struck out 17 and didn’t allow a single free pass in Ellington’s 2-0 win over the Bobcats, Fisher was just plain ol’ wrong in the second half of her prediction.
Truth of the matter: She fired a one-hitter, instead.
“That’s a good fail,” she quipped with her patented smile after the Knights improved to 8-2 on the season.
In a state full of very good pitchers, Fisher is right there in the mix as a player whose arm might be the very best.
“I’m going to tell you right now, she’s got the goods,” longtime Ellington Coach Tom Gordon said. “Crazy thing is last year she was good, but this year she’s even better. If she keeps on this trajectory, the sky is the limit.”
This season, through 10 games, Fisher has 118 strikeouts and only nine walks, according to her statistics on Maxpreps. For her career, which is just halfway through her junior, she already has more than 500 career strikeouts, as well, according to the website.
Fisher was 13 the first time Gordon saw her throw and he knew he had a good one coming. Of course, by that age, Fisher had been called up to her travel team’s U-18 squad at times simply because she could compete at that level.
Playing alongside high school players in a fall-ball league, Gordon saw the future of his program up close.
“She was in seventh grade and already throwing in the mid-50s,” he said. “She had a little bit of work to do, but she was almost there.”
Work is something Fisher has always been willing to put in.
She started playing softball early on and had already joined the travel ranks by the time she was 10 years old, playing for the CT Diamonds.
“I think everyone starts off with their group of sports that they play, but softball stood out to me,” Fisher said. “And with pitching, you have control of the game. You control the pace. Sometimes you can even control the energy and I liked that.”
While she had always been a hard-thrower, Fisher had to find her control. In fact, if there was one draw-back on her scouting report it was her control issues.
“She has all the pitches, but the thing that held her back was her control,” Gordon said. “Her control now is almost pinpoint, not quite pinpoint, but very close. It makes all the difference.”
Fisher credits her latest pitching coach (Trinity College assistant softball coach George Perlotto) and her current travel program (ROCK Travel based out of Newtown, Pa.) in bringing everything together for her this season.
Playing travel ball out of Pennsylvania means three-hour car rides each way and occasional hotel stays just for practices.
That’s the kind of effort and commitment that becomes the conduit for greatness, however.
“The team is great, and the coaches have helped me so much, too, with George, with the recruiting process,” Fisher said. “One of the reasons I wanted when I transferred from the Diamonds was the exposure. We go to tournaments in South Carolina, Texas, California. If I had stayed with a local team, I don’t think I would have gotten as much exposure.”
Armed with six pitches (fastball, screwball, curve, change up, rise and drop) and the ability to hit 68 miles per hour on the radar gun, colleges have been keeping an eye on Fisher for a while now.
“It was really stressful,” she said. “I was sending out a lot of emails all the time and you don’t know who is interested until Sept. 1 hits (and the recruiting period begins). You can have coaches following you on Twitter and you can have coaches watching you at your games, but you really don’t know who is interested in you until then.”
Once her recruiting period started, her phone blew up.
“It was like text after text,” Fisher said. “It was fun. It was like Christmas.”
One recruiting trip changed her future, though.
A visit to Syracuse painted the picture of what Fisher wanted out of the rest of her career. The campus, the coaches; the players, the program.
“It was just people who I knew I wanted to be around,” she said. “I just loved the school, so I committed early. I had a few other visits set up, but I knew Syracuse is where I wanted to be.”
Gordon, for one, is glad Fisher has gotten the pressure-filled college process out of the way extra early.
“It’s good and it really does make such a big difference,” the coach said. “It’s all out of the way. Now, all she has to do is keep getting a little bit better every time out and she’ll be well-prepared by the time she gets (to Syracuse).”
The kid who wears No. 27 in honor of former Arizona and Team USA pitching great Jenny Finch has a few more goals left before heading to upstate New York for her college career, though.
First and foremost is getting Ellington to the top of the Class L ranks over these last two seasons of her high school career.
A year ago, Fisher pitched the Knights to a 19-8 record, the NCCC championship and the Class L semifinals, where they lost to eventual five-time state champion Masuk.
Only two seniors graduated from that squad, however, which means the Knights are loaded this year—especially with Fisher being one year better.
There were no bold predictions from the Ellington hurler about the rest of the season.
In short, she knows there is still work to be done—starting with Tuesday’s home game against South Windsor.
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