By: John Fryman
THE VILLAGE REPORTER
john@thevillagereporter.com
Montpelier’s CJ Fidler is likely the first sophomore in the four-county area to have already scored 1,000 career points — and he hasn’t yet reached the halfway point of his high school basketball career.
In the Division VII district semifinal against Buckeye Border Conference archrival Stryker, he became the seventh player in program history to join the elite 1,000-point club.
“It feels great and it’s something that I have been working for all my life, and it’s a great milestone,” Fidler said. “This is something that I’ve dreamed about since I was a little kid.”
He was surprised to reach the mark so early, especially knowing most area players don’t hit 1,000 points until their junior or senior seasons.
“It’s something that you usually see at the end of their junior year or maybe senior year for some people,” Fidler said. “The hard work is paying off.”
Montpelier head boys basketball coach Nick Ramos says Fidler does everything for the Locos’ program. “He’s a leader on the floor, a leader at practice and he’s a leader during games,” Ramos said.
“He really does a good job incorporating other kids into the game. He may score 30 points, but if you look at our scoring and the way we score, most of the time we have multiple guys in double digits.
“A lot of that is due to CJ passing the ball and getting other people’s shots, which is kind of tough for a young player to do like he does. Just the way he moves with the ball and the way he facilitates our offense, it really helps everything initiate and get going with a player like CJ.”
The son of Chris and Doonie Fidler, CJ Fidler has essentially grown up in the gym. His father previously served as head boys basketball coach at North Central in Pioneer, where the elder Fidler scored 1,594 career points, and currently serves as an assistant coach at Montpelier.
“My dad has been a coach my whole life,” Fidler said. “As I grew, I started to watch the game, love the game, and then I was going outside shooting bunches of shots every day with my mom.”
His father gave him an early piece of advice: work on form shooting, but don’t shoot three-pointers yet, warning it could lead to bad habits. That philosophy changed this season.
Fidler has connected on 51 of 141 three-point attempts for 36 percent, setting a new school single-season record for trifectas.
He broke the previous mark of 47, set by Joey Van Coppenole in the 1996-97 season. He also holds the single-game school record with seven three-pointers, topping the previous mark of six set by Tyson Moss in 1996-97. Needing just 18 points to reach the milestone against Stryker, Fidler finished with 24 in a 60-40 victory.
He followed that with a 28-point performance as Montpelier claimed a 71-56 win over Miller City, the school’s first district title since 1946. “That was really outstanding,” Ramos said of the 1,000-point achievement.
“That game itself started out a little bit slow, so we weren’t sure how it was going to go. But with this basketball team, it was like ‘The Little Engine That Could’ — just keep going and going until finally we started taking off there and CJ got his points. With that getting done, it takes a lot of pressure off of him.
Being a sophomore and that’s everybody all wanting to talk about now, that’s the last thing CJ wants to talk about. He would rather talk about what we’re going to do as a team.”
Entering the regional final against Arlington, Fidler has totaled 1,034 points, placing him sixth on the school’s all-time career scoring list.
He joined six others in the Montpelier 1,000-point club: Kolden Uribes (1,527 points, 2018 graduate), Mike Bumb (1,225 points, 1992 graduate), Michael Blake (1,077 points, 2017 graduate), Joel Jerger (1,070 points, 1996 graduate), Chris McCrea (1,049 points, 1992 graduate) and Garrett Walz (1,022 points, 2023 graduate).
The 6-foot-2 sophomore also set a new school single-season scoring record with 573 points, breaking the previous mark of 532 set by Bumb in 1990-91.
As a freshman, Fidler scored 461 points and helped lead the Locos to a second straight Buckeye Border Conference title, sharing it with Edon and Pettisville. He earned first-team all-conference and District 7 honors.
“I enjoyed every second of it and to make every moment memorable and that’s the main thing,” Fidler said. “This year’s seniors and last year’s seniors just kind of took me under their wing and taught me how to play Montpelier basketball.”
Ramos knew about Fidler’s ability from the moment he arrived. “We had known each other a little bit, especially when his dad was already here as an assistant coach,” Ramos said.
“You could see it from day one, just his basketball IQ was off the charts and the way he ran the offense. He’s always trying to get better, and you can see that whether it’s coming in earlier or staying late or maybe even working on not even his shooting so much but working on his defensive slides and trying to stay in front of people.
Those are the little things that CJ does and that we recognize right away, and it’s going to be great for this program.”
Among the best players in the four-county area this season, Fidler averages 22.9 points per game and has dealt with increased defensive pressure throughout the year. At 6-2 with solid physical strength, he has become a difficult matchup for opposing teams.
“Earlier in the year I say it was more challenging but having teammates and coaches that are willing to adjust their ways to help me out,” Fidler said.
“Just having the coaches and players that are willing to do things to help me get open is a huge thing.” Fidler, again a first-team BBC and District 7 selection, has been central to the Locos’ first outright BBC championship — a perfect 7-0 league record — and the program’s first outright conference title since 1955-56.
“We had a lot of guys returning from last year’s team, but we were also very young,” Fidler said. “This year we knew people were coming for us because we were one of the better teams in the area.
“Making sure coming to practice every day focused, every game focused and just knowing that we got to come out and perform in every game.”
With nearly half of his high school career still ahead, Fidler appears to be on track to challenge the 2,000-point barrier before graduation. “He’s got a lot of work to do,” Ramos said.
“Like I keep saying, he just keeps getting better. He strives to get better every day he’s in the gym. And with a work ethic like that, I wouldn’t imagine 2,000 points won’t be far off.”
Beyond basketball, Fidler competes in golf — earning second-team all-BBC honors last fall — and baseball, where he was a second-team pick last spring.
In the classroom, he carries a 3.85 grade point average and serves as a student council representative and a member of the National Honor Society.
