Morgan Fish

Morgan Fish grew up idolizing the girls’ basketball players at Fort Edward High School who got to celebrate Section II Class D championships at Hudson Valley Community College.

The Flying Forts were a dominant force in Section II small-school girls’ basketball during Fish’s younger years, winning area crowns five times from 2011 to 2016. Back in March, Fish got to join that legacy as a team captain when Fort Edward topped Whitehall to capture the Class D title, ending a four-year drought.

“Finally getting that chance to run out on the court at the end of the game was a huge highlight for me,” Fish said.

A four-year varsity athlete in both basketball and volleyball who is the valedictorian of Fort Edward’s Class of 2020, Fish is one of 10 high school honorees for the inaugural Capital District Sports Women of the Year awards, which also sees three college athletes recognized.

She carries a 99 average in the classroom and served as a team captain in both volleyball and basketball, all while balancing that with rigorous coursework as part of the New Visions medical program, part of her pathway to a planned career in medicine.

Finding a balance between every aspect of her life required a lot of work.

“It was tough. A lot of late nights,” Fish said. “I stay after with teachers and I talk with them about things and get things off my chest. I tell them what’s bothering me — especially my New Visions teacher, Dr. Julie Ross, she would always listen and make sure I was doing all right — [and] just talking through things with my coaches, too. Being able to let everything go, get everything out there [helped me].”

In the athletic world, Fish not only won the Section II Class D championship on the basketball court as a senior but was also a key part of a Fort Edward volleyball team that also advanced to the area final.

“I’m definitely proud of my teams,” she said. “You can’t do anything without your team. You build such a strong relationship with every single one of them, and that means more to me than any of it.”

A member of the National Honor Society, Fish has spent her senior year immersed in the New Visions Health Careers program through Capital Region BOCES.

The program involves two days a week of classroom work “learning about the basics” of medical ethics, medical terminology, anatomy and physiology, plus three days of the week taking part in clinical rotations and getting immersed in various aspects of the medical profession.

“I saw a spinal surgery, I rode in an ambulance with EMTs, I saw cardiac catheterizations in the hospital,” Fish said.

That experience has helped Fish understand her career ambitions.

“Not just learning about them in the classroom, but actually getting to see them is such a great experience — especially for kids our age,” she said.

Fish fills up her breaks from school with community service, largely through the Upward Bound program at SUNY Adirondack, through which she’s an annual volunteer at the Double H Ranch in Lake Luzerne, which provides programs and year-round support for children and their families dealing with life-threatening illnesses.

She’s also a dedicated fundraiser for Fort Edward volleyball’s Side Out Foundation to support breast cancer research, and has worked with the Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York, both helping to prepare food for distribution and working at the Patroon

Land Farm in Voorheesville that supplies the Food Bank.

“We planted almost 3,000 plants for them,” she said.

This article appeared in the 2020 CDSWOY Awards Program on August 18, 2020.