Sandpoint running back the 'ultimate gamer'
SANDPOINT — It’s maybe the biggest compliment a coach can give a player, and it was the first thing Sandpoint High School running backs coach Derek Dickinson said when asked about senior Ben Fisher.
“Ultimate gamer,” said Dickinson, using sports parlance to describe a player who rises to the occasion come game time. “He’s a guy you get in that trench with and fight a battle; 100 percent every game.”
Such praise stems from a recent spate of great games for the senior running back/safety, who rarely leaves the field during a game. During the Bulldogs’ current four game winning streak, the shifty and durable back has carried 89 times for 687 yards and nine touchdowns, for a robust eight yards a carry.
Couple that with the fact that he starts at free safety, and is also a dangerous punt returner, and you’ve got one of the better all-around players in the Inland Empire League.
“He never gets off the field, just a complete high school football player,” said head coach Mike Mitchell, calling him the Bulldogs’ workhorse. “He’s not real vocal, he just leads by playing.”
Fisher, who also excels on the Sandpoint baseball team, wasted little time in saying he prefers playing offense over defense. In the Bulldogs’ zone blocking scheme, much of Fisher’s success comes from great vision and running downhill when the first crease develops.
Like all great running backs, he had high praise for the hogs up front, who have helped not just Fisher, but fellow running backs Cody Hecker, Luther Morgan and Anthony Gold have great rushing success. Skyler Kernodle, Jimmy Aylward, Joel Cramer, Josh Mathews and Jacob Palaniuk have meshed as a unit, and Morgan is a crushing lead blocker.
“I love running counters behind Jake P., we really click. He knows how I run from playing three years together,” described Fisher. “Skyler’s a big boy and nobody can see you. He throws a block and I pop out.”
At just 5-foot-9, Fisher relishes when opponents underestimate him. In fact, it’s part of what drives him to succeed. Belying his size, he has gotten stronger as the season progressed in each of the past two seasons. This year he’s amassed 1,035 yards and 15 rushing touchdowns, and will look to add to those totals against Middleton, which held him to just 21 yards on seven carries earlier in the year.
“Because of my size, people first look at me and get the underdog thing,” said Fisher. “I like succeeding from that point of view, proving people wrong.”
Fisher carries a 3.5 grade point average, and is hoping to play football in college if the right opportunity presents itself. Right now his focus is on the next game, as he hopes the senior-laden Bulldogs can finally break through in the playoffs after several years of close first round losses.
“We’ve got a different mindset this year,” he said. “We’re not looking past the game ahead of us.”