The Green Room

“The paddle in was amazing and we were surprised how many waves were actually caught. Almost everyone got a wave in what turned out to be an optimal paddle in day at the reef.”
– Contest director and Nelscott Reef founder John Forse.

(After conferring with big wave contest guru Gary Linden, and based on competitors feedback and spectator enthusiasm, Forse decided to integrate the paddle-in into future events.)

“It was insane. Those guys killed it out there. When you are tow surfing all day, it’s really spread out and you can come at it from any angle. tow surfing shows the angel, paddle surfing shrunk the playing field down to a takeoff area, you realize that’s a good wave to paddle. I’m not a big wave paddler, but the guys today put themselves in position to get pounded. There’s some big waves out there. They were doing it like a heat, full-on battling for positioning, strategizing. It’s pretty exciting. I saw Jamie Mitchell get pounded, ran into some bull kelp. That stuff can definitely take you out.”
– 2007 and 2008 co-champion Adam Replogle

“It was fantastic, it was long overdue, demonstrating that it could be paddled. It was really great to see the resurgence of the purity of paddling into big waves. They proved without a doubt that this is a paddle-able wave.”
– Jake Wormhoudt, who won the inaugural Nelscott contest in 2005 with brother Zach

2008 Paddle-In Contest final results:
1. Kealii Mamala (HAW)
2. Jamie Mitchell (AUS)
3. Shane Desmond (N.Cal)
4. Mike Parsons (S.Cal)
5. Gary Linden (S.Cal)
6. Justin Howard (Oregon)
7. Chad Jackson (C.Cal)
8. Zach Wormhoudt (N.Cal)
9. Steve Harnack (Oregon)

Santa Cruz’s Jake Wormhoudt flies down the face of a huge wave during the finals of the Nelscott Reef Tow-In Classic. Three of the four teams in the final hailed from Santa Cruz, including winners Alistair Craft and Adam Replogle. photo: Richard Hallman

When the 2008 Nelscott Reef Tow-In Classic was given the green light for Sunday, Santa Cruz surfers Adam Replogle and Alistair Craft were on the fence about whether to make the ten-hour haul north to Lincoln City, Ore. to compete.

Having already won the last contest in January of this year, the duo wasn’t sure if the responsibilities of work and family around the Thanksgiving holiday would allow them the time to defend their title.

“To be honest with you, we weren’t even going to do this,” Replogle said. “We didn’t show up for the ceremony last year. Not because we were trying to be disrespectful, but me and Al both have two kids and a job to get back to and we’re in the middle of nowhere out here. So it’s pretty overwhelming to be here. I just didn’t think it was going to happen.”

After repeating as champions Sunday at the frigid deep-water wave in Central Oregon, the two are glad they returned.

Replogle and Craft towed each other into numerous bombs, surfing the waves — some in excess of 30 feet on the face — as if they were out shredding a head-high day at Sewer Peak, and earning first place with a combined score of 44.26. The father-son team of Josiah and Jeff Schmucker from Australia earned second place with 41.8, followed by two pairs of Santa Cruz brothers: Russell and Tyler Smith in third [41.22], and Zach and Jake Wormhoudt in fourth [40.16].

“Back to back, it was killer. We had a good time,” Craft said. “I think last year we didn’t feel that great about the final, we didn’t think we had a chance of winning. Neither Adam or I felt we surfed spectacularly or had great waves. But this year we felt we had a shot.”

With three of the four teams to reach the final hailing from Santa Cruz, the final was more like a tow-in session among friends in their own backyard than a high-stakes international contest, Replogle said.

“Basically we had just a normal surf, respecting each others surfing and timing,” he said. “We tried to ensure the normal protocol where whoever has been waiting the longest gets next wave. Sometimes when you don’t have people form your own neighborhood out there, things can get very competitive. … It can get intense.”

Aside from a bout of early-morning fog, conditions for the fourth annual contest were all-time. Air temperatures hovered around 65 degrees and there was no wind all day, keeping the huge waves glassy and well-shaped.

“I can’t believe I’m walking around in a T-shirt,” said contest organizer Adam Wagner.

Hawaii’s Kealii Mamala won the inaugural paddle-in contest, earning $1,000 and free entry, along with tow partner Garrett McNamara, into next year’s Nelscott contest. The Hawaiian waterman, who in recent years has dared to ride just about any craft in big waves — from stand-up paddle surfing at Maverick’s to tow surfing waves created by falling glaciers in Alaska — managed to snag four of the roving beasts breaking across the shifty Nelscott lineup.

“Kealii is phenomenal,” Replogle said after watching the paddle-in event. “Tow, paddle, stand-up, I think that guy could do anything on a board.”

A total of 12 waves were caught in the highly anticipated event, proving that the wave at Nelscott can indeed by paddled into. The first wave of the paddle contest happened to be snagged by Zach Wormhoudt, who managed to sniff out the takeoff spot before the rest of the pack.

“Zach got a bomb,” said brother Jake. “It was fantastic, it was long overdue, demonstrating that it could be paddled. It was really great to see the resurgence of the purity of paddling into big waves. They proved without a doubt that this is a paddle-able wave.”

Plenty of folks in Santa Cruz thought it was possible. Some even said it was only a matter of time. But few of us expected it would happen this soon.

Nat Young, the 17-year-old “Pride of the Westside,” won the 2008 O’Neill Cold Water Classic Sunday in pumping overhead surf at Steamer Lane. He is the youngest surfer ever to win the prestigious event and the first to bring the title back to Santa Cruz since Kieran Horn in 2003.

“It’s been a long day,” Young said after being carried up the stairs at Steamer Lane and mobbed by well-wishers and media. “I’ve been in my wetsuit since 7 a.m.”

Young’s first-ever victory in a World Qualifying Series event came by less than three-quarters of a point over second place finisher Chris Waring from Seal Beach. Maui’s Granger Larsen finished in third and Sean Moody, also from Hawaii, took fourth.

All four surfers surfed brilliantly during the final, which saw a booming northwest swell combine with an afternoon low tide for a wealth of waves pouring in off Lighthouse Point. The heat was so close that Young, who earned a final heat score of 13.87 out of a possible 20 points, and Moody were separated by less than two points.

“This was one of the best contests I think we’ve had in 21 years,” said Pat O’Neill, president and CEO of O’Neill Wetsuits. “The waves were always big enough for guys to get enough speed to pull off the most amazing maneuvers and really shine.”

No one shined brighter than than Young. After falling on his first two waves early in the final, Young settled down and found a solid opening score of a 6.5. Then, needing a score of at least 6.1 to take the lead, Young stroked into a medium-sized wave that walled up all the way through to the inside and linked together a series of vicious backside turns. The ride earned Young a 7.37, leapfrogging him past Waring and Moody for first place with eight minutes remaining in the heat. From there, Young was able to hold onto his slim 0.74-point lead until time expired.”I started off slow,” Young said. “I tried to go too big a couple times and fell. Then the waves started pumping and everything started to flow for me.”

It was the second big final in recent months for Young and Larsen, 18, who are developing quite the rivalry. The two also met in the finals of the National Scholastic Surfing Association’s National Championships at Lower Trestles this summer. Larsen, the favorite, wound up finishing runner-up to Young.

“I would say there’s a bit of a rivalry now, for sure,” Larsen said. “He had me. … Anyone could have won, but he’s the local, he knows the wave. Party at Nat’s house tonight!”

Larsen wasn’t the only one toasting Young on Sunday. In fact, it appeared as though half of Santa Cruz showed up at Lighthouse Point to cheer on the polite, freckle-faced grommet, who was the last local surfer remaining in the contest after fellow Santa Cruz surfers Bud Freitas, Randy Bonds and Jason “Ratboy” Collins were all eliminated in the semifinals.

The hometown crowd rallied behind Young, erupting with noise at every big backside turn, cringing any time a he dug a rail — which wasn’t often — and waving bright orange sings that read ‘Go Nat!’.

“Nike [one of Young's sponsors] made the signs and passed them out,” Young’s mom, Rosie, said. “Nat was a little shy about that.”

For Rosie Young, who has chauffeured her son up and down the California coast countless times for NSSA contests and other surfing events, his victory at the Cold Water represents the culmination of a five-year full-time commitment to her son’s surfing.

“Nat’s been surfing for five years now hardcore, every day,” she said. “Him winning the Cold Water at his age is something he can always be proud of, and it shows him what he’s capable of in the future.”

Youth was certainly the theme of the day as the average age of the four finalists was just 20. With underage surfers like Young and Larsen on the victory podium, contest directors had to quickly replace everyone’s beers with energy drinks and water before bestowing the finalists with the traditional victory soaking.

When asked what he planned to do with his $10,000 first-place check, a sopping-wet and shivering Young gave a prudent answer well beyond his grom years. “I’m going to put the money in my bank account,” he said.

O’Neill, who has known Young since he first began surfing for Team O’Neill at the age of five, said he had a special feeling watching Young’s run through the Cold Water.

“I’m so proud of Nat,” O’Neill said. “Last year, watching him in the Pro Junior, I just had a feeling he was going to win it, and I got that same feeling watching him in the contest this year.”

With the 2007 Pro Junior title and this year’s Cold Water both under his belt, O’Neill said there’s only one feat left for Young at next year’s Cold Water.

“He can still surf in the Pro Junior event until he’s 20,” O’Neill said, “so he’s got a few years to try and win them both.”

It’s official.

After an utterly dominant start to this year’s Association of Surfing Professionals World Championship Tour, Kelly Slater clinched his record ninth world title Friday at the Billabong Pro Mundaka, in Spain’s Basque Country.

Slater’s latest crown comes 16 years after securing his first ASP world title in 1992 at age 20. He remains the youngest-ever world surfing champion, and now, at 36, he is also the oldest surfer in ASP history to win a world title.

Even before No. 9, Slater was unquestionably the most successful professional surfer of all time. In addition to owning the most ASP world titles of any surfer in history [next in line is Australia's Mark Richards, with five], Slater also holds pretty much every other significant record in the world of professional surfing, including: most ASP world tour victories [39]; most event wins in a season [seven in 1996]; and highest heat total [Slater is the only surfer ever to score a perfect 20 out of 20 in a heat, a feat he accomplished during an epic performance in Tahiti in 2005].

Now the question arises: Where does Slater’s legacy rank among history’s all-time dominant athletes?

The “most dominant athlete” debate is a regular item on the agenda inside sports bars and on ESPN. The discussion invariably includes a small handful of usual suspects like Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Muhammad Ali, Lance Armstrong and now Michael Phelps.

Even in a surf town like Santa Cruz, you’ll never hear Slater’s name thrown into the mix — a major oversight. While it’s true professional surfing is but a small blip on the mainstream sports radar, that shouldn’t diminish Slater’s athletic achievement.Similar to Jordan, Slater went into semi-retirement and then returned years later to reaffirm his dominance against an entirely new generation of younger competitors. At the ripe old age of 26, after claiming five world titles in a row from 1994 to 1998, Slater retired from competition citing burnout and a lack of motivation. He returned to the tour full-time in 2003, lost a heart-wrenching title race to Hawaii’s Andy Irons that same year, and wasn’t able to reclaim the crown until 2005. Slater then cruised to title No. 8 in 2006 and made it nine on Friday.

Armstrong “only” has seven Tour de France titles, but he managed to win them all in a row [from 1999 to 2005]. It’s possible that, had he not taken a break from the tour, Slater could have made it to seven in a row as well, maybe more. Now Armstrong is attempting to do what Slater has already done — return from retirement to once again climb to the top of the pack against a new crop of younger athletes. It will be interesting to see how he fares.

Tennis great Roger Federer has won 13 Grand Slam singles titles in his career and was the world’s No. 1-ranked player for a record 237 consecutive weeks, from February 2, 2004, through August 17, 2008. He remains close to unbeatable on grass, but has proven vulnerable to younger players such as Spain’s Rafael Nadal, especially on clay. Slater meanwhile is the favorite to win every event he enters, no matter the venue, from 2-foot Huntington Beach to 12-foot Pipeline, and has been the favorite for 16 years.

Phelps has won 14 career gold medals over two Olympic games, but let’s see how well his arms paddle against the world’s best when he’s 36. Furthermore, the ASP world tour is a 10-month season with stops around the world. To consistently win events requires a continuous top form for the entire year, not just one climactic two weeks.

And Tiger Woods? Well, I don’t consider golfers athletes, so that takes care of that.

I don’t expect to convince any Chicago Bears “superfans” that Slater is greater than Mike Ditka. Nor do I think I can convince hardcore golfers that Slater’s backside surfing at Pipeline requires more skill than Tiger Woods’ putt to force a playoff at the U.S. Open. All I’m saying is that what Slater has accomplished in his career deserves just as much mention in a discussion of athletic dominance as the standard cast of characters.

So next time you’re in a bar or listening to sports talk on the car radio, and you hear the “most dominant athlete” debate start up again, pipe up and give a shout-out for surfing’s great one, Mr. Slater.

A small encampment of smiling people lying on beach towels and sitting in folding chairs was the only sign that the biggest bodysurfing event in Northern California was happening in Santa Cruz. There were no sponsor tents, no sound systems thumping out music, no contest announcer. Just an inconspicuous scattering of swim fins and wetsuits on the sand in front of a nice peak breaking at 26th Avenue Beach.

Eric Gustafson of San Francisco, above, looks out from the mouth of a 26th Avenue barrel during a senior men’s heat Saturday.

The Santa Cruz Bodysurfing Association’s annual California Bodysurfing Championships was held in typical low-key fashion on Saturday. The contest, first started in 1983, continues to run relatively unchanged since its inception. That includes the pancake breakfast for participants at event director Tish “The Fish” Denevan’s house, a group barbeque, and no mention of prize money anywhere. The competition aspect remains informal [Denevan walked the beach Saturday asking if anyone wanted to help judge heats while the other judges headed out in the water]. It’s less about a contest and more about gathering the small, scattered tribe of bodysurfers, Denevan said.

“It’s a little bit lonely out there,” Denevan said. “Anytime you see another bodysurfer out in the water, you naturally gravitate to them. If I ever meet another bodysurfer I say, ‘Hey, join our contest!’”

When asked what she liked most about putting on the event every year, Denevan described a “feeling of being connected with everybody” and “the camaraderie.”While stand-up surfing today is featured in mainstream movies, fashion and advertisements, bodysurfers continue to operate under the radar. There are no bodysurfing magazines, no professional bodysurfing tour, and even the world’s most talented practitioners perform their dolphin-like acts to little fanfare or recognition. “Professional bodysurfer” remains an oxymoron.

Aside from wave riding of dolphins and seals, bodysurfing is a rare sight along our coast. The small cadre of lifeguards and water people who regularly partake in the sport are often forced to do so alone.

Case in point: Two bodysurfers at this year’s contest meet on the beach and begin talking about the waves. It turns out they both live in San Francisco and often surf the same spots. Both said they usually go out alone and were happy to find a partner to paddle out with, “especially on a big day at Ocean Beach.”

Nick Harvey shoots out of a large wave off of 26th Avenue on Saturday during the first semi-final junior men’s heat.

One of the men, Eric Gustafson, said that in the nearly 15 years he’s been living in San Francisco, he had only met three other bodysurfers — in a city trafficked by a million people every day. While the small number of bodysurfers around San Francisco may have something to do with the frigid waters and punishing surf of Ocean Beach, most of the bodysurfers at 26th Avenue on Saturday agreed they were something of a dying breed.

“There aren’t many of us,” said bodysurfer Peter Horak, of Santa Cruz. “Look around — a bunch of silver streaks.”

Quinn Sandberg, 17, was one of the few youngsters surfing in Saturday’s event. Sandberg, a senior at Soquel High, said he was one of just a few kids at his school who like to bodysurf. He attributed the underground nature of bodysurfing in part to the lack of commercial opportunities to make money off the sport.

“There aren’t really any products to sell besides swim fins,” he said. “They’re not selling anything with bodysurfing. There’s no magazines or shops or anything like that. There’s a lot more of that with stand-up surfing.”

A small clan of 31 bodysurfers from up and down the California coast — nearly half made the trip up from Southern California — showed up for Saturday’s gathering. They were treated to some pretty good conditions: The sun shone down all day as a fogbank was kept at bay far offshore and 2- to 3-foot green waves peeled left and right before hollowing out onto the sand.

Among this year’s contestants was Judith Sheridan, the San Francisco bodysurfer of underground surfing lore known for her fearless sessions out at triple-overhead Ocean Beach and as the only person ever to attempt to bodysurf Maverick’s. Sheridan said the attraction of bodysurfing is simple: an undeniably smoother, more intimate interaction with the wave itself, without the board as intermediary.

“I don’t like the idea of all this gear,” she said. “[With bodysurfing] there’s nothing between you and the water.”

Girls 10 & under push in

LINCOLN CITY, Oregon, July 18th, 2008 – Behemoth, LLC is proud to announce
the 2008 Nelscott Reef Tow In Classic lineup and a new paddle in contest, a first for the
Classic.  Coming off three years of perfect contest conditions, Behemoth has raised the
bar for the 2008 contest.  Once again, the world’s best tow in surfers will converge in
Lincoln City, OR for the one-day event to be held sometime between October 1 and
December 31st, 2008.

This years contest will once again attract some of the biggest names in the sport.
Previous winners of the event, Jake and Zach Wormhoudt and Garrett McNamara and
Kealii Mamala will return, competing against such names as Brad Gerlach and Mike
Parsons, Greg and Rusty Long, Tyler and Russell Smith, and an Irish team of Alistair
Mennie and Andrew Cotton.

This year there will be 16 teams competing for the prize money, rather than 20 teams
from previous years.  The smaller field will allow more waves per contestant and
minimize interference.

New this year is the introduction of a paddle in contest, to be held in the one hour slot
between the preliminary heats of the Tow contest and the finals.  The winner of the
paddle contest will get a seed, along with their tow partner, to the 2009 Nelscott Reef
Tow In Classic, plus a cash purse.

Behemoth has always advocated the philosophy that ‘Big Wave credentials are
established by paddling big waves not by the simple purchase of a PWC’ and is a
requirement to be a competent and safe tow in surfer, a philosophy shared by many if not
all of the pros.  The addition of the paddle in event is a natural extension of that
philosophy.

“This is the best way for the locals to prove that they have what it takes to compete
against the best in the world”, says Forse.  “The winner of the paddle contest will get a
seed, along with their tow partner, to the 2009 Nelscott Reef Tow In Classic, plus a cash
purse”.

Behemoth has set aside half of the available slots for the locals.  The locals will have
their work cut out for them, with the field of ten surfers vying for the biggest and baddest
wave they can paddle into.  The pros competing in this year’s paddle in event will be
Zach Wormhoudt, Mike Parsons, Shane Desmond, Greg Long, and Al Mennie.  Local
Oregonian invitees are Steve Harnack, Tim Hinton, Dan Hasselschwert, Jay Senewald,
and Jason Garding.

The contest has a 3-month holding period to allow for the best possible combination
of large surf and weather.  During that time, John Forse, the pioneer of Nelscott Reef,
monitors the forecasts and when conditions look right, he makes the call, which is a 48-
hour notice of the start of the event.  For three years in a row, his call has been the right
one, with each year bringing bigger and better conditions on the contest day.  The 2007
event was split between 2 days, with waves up to 50 feet on some of the sets.

The Nelscott Reef Tow In Classic, unofficially marks the opening of the Pacific big
wave season.  With the absence of La Nina, which plagued the North Pacific with poor
conditions last year, conditions could be epic again.

Behemoth, LLC will be refreshing their web page, www.nelscottreef.com, for the
2008 contest in the upcoming weeks.  The new page will contain all the information on
this years contest, including a real time contest traffic light.  Photos and videos from the
previous years will also be available.

The Nelscott Reef Tow In Classic is the only tow in contest on the North American
continent and Oregon’s only professional surf event.

2008 Confirmed Tow In Contest List:

Shane Desmond (N.Cal) Tyler Fox (N.Cal)
Garrett McNamara (HAW) Kealii Mamala (HAW)
Raph Bruhwiler (CAN) Keith Malloy (S.Cal)
Zach Wormhoudt (N.Cal) Jake Wormhoudt (N.Cal)
Brad Gerlach (S.Cal) Mike Parsons (S.Cal)
Greg Long (S.Cal) Rusty Long (S.Cal)
Russel Smith (N.Cal) Tyler Smith (N.Cal)
Dave Mcgill (Oregon) Matt Esnard (Oregon)
Yuri Soledade (Brazil) Everaldo Pato Texeira (Brazil)
Jeremy Rasmussen (Oregon) Tom Miller (Oregon)
Al Mennie (Ireland) Andrew Cotton (Ireland)
Jeff Kafka (N.Cal) Brent Simpson (N.Cal)
Alec Cooke (HAW) TBD

2008 Paddle In Contest List:

Zach Wormhoudt (N.Cal)
Mike Parsons (S.Cal)
Shane Desmond (N.Cal)
Greg Long (S.Cal)
Al Mennie (Ireland)
Steve Harnack (OR)
Tim Hinton (OR)
Dan Hasselschwert (OR)
Jay Senewald (OR)
Jason Garding (OR)

Nat Young was in Seignosse, France all week competing for the USA Surf Team at the International Surfing Association World Junior Championships. With the eyes of the entire surfing world watching, Young put in the best performance of any male surfer representing the USA.

Surfing against the best junior surfers from around the world — 28 countries sent their best — Young, 16, made it to the quarterfinals of the Boys Under 18 division. The talented goofy footer from the Westside of Santa Cruz placed first in his two opening round heats and second in his third round heat. After winning his fourth round heat, knocking off countrymen Dillon Perillo and Tyler Newton, Young looked poised to continue his campaign all the way to the finals. Unfortunately, Young couldn’t quite find the waves he needed in the quarters and finished third behind Paco Divers of New Zealand and eventual champion, Alejo Muniz, from Brazil. Nevertheless, it was an incredible run by the most promising competitive surfer to emerge from Santa Cruz in recent memory. Young’s points also helped Team USA improve its overall team performance from fifth place last year to fourth place in 2008.

Australia claimed the Team World Championship for the third year in a row. Brazil took the silver and Australia the bronze. Team USA finished in fourth place earning the copper medal.

What to do when almost 100 surfers show up at the beach for a surf contest but the surf fails to follow suit?This was the question facing surfers and organizers at the fifth annual Schralpfest surf contest at Pleasure Point on Saturday, which saw plenty of enthusiastic young surfers, but mostly weak ankle to knee-high waves struggling to break through the lineup.

Fortunately, Schralpfest is about a lot more than just competitive surfing.

“It’s all about giving kids something positive to do, whether it’s a surf contest, trips to skateparks or dances,” said Jenny Useldinger, 23, who went on to win the women’s event. “I grew up on 34th Ave. Back then, living near the Point, there was a lot of drugs and alcohol around. [Schralpfest] definitely puts on a positive vibe.”

Seven Adams works over a small Pleasure Point wave in an early Shralpfest heat Saturday morning.

Schralpfest is a total grassroots surf contest, organized for the youth of the community by the youth of the community. The event is hosted by The Core, a local youth group founded in 2002 to give kids around town positive recreational, social and educational activities to engage in. The Core members — ranging from middle-school-age kids to 21-year-olds — meets weekly to organize concerts, dances, educational speakers, mentorships, and the Core run-swim-run.

“We’ve been getting a lot of younger kids,” said Kim Clary, who founded The Core in 2002, “but even as our original kids get older they aren’t leaving. They’re staying on and mentoring the younger kids. They all work together to put on this event.”

Some big names showed up for the Pro-am division, including Peter Mel — who also helped MC the event — Anthony Ruffo, Homer Henard, and eventual winner Jason “Ratboy” Collins. But it wasn’t just for the $500 prize purse, said pro surfer and Schralpfest contest director, Matt Myers.

“You see pros like Peter Mel and Homer Henard out surfing in the contest and hanging out with everyone even though the waves aren’t good,” Myers said. “Normally you would be over it and out of here, but everyone is hanging out to support the kids.”

This year’s contest saw 90 surfers of all ages sign up to participate at the beach in the early morning.

In addition to being able to surf in one of the more popular local amateur contest, kids were treated to a free lunch from Aloha Island Grill, a T-shirt and entry into a raffle for prizes like wetsuits and surfboards.

Despite being micro, the waves were still contestable, especially for the smaller groms, and plenty of small wave hotdogging was on display.

Jacob Davis slices through a cutback in his grom heat at the Shralpfest Saturday at Pleasure Point.

Noah Wegrich “schralped” his way to first place in the Groms event and Jason Hdez won the Juniors. In the women’s open, it was Sahara Ray and McKenzie Stair taking second and third respectively behind Useldinger, who said she was just happy to be a part of such a community oriented surf contest.

“It’s just cool that it’s all local kids putting it on,” Useldinger said. “It’s something that the city was lacking when I was growing up.”

This just in from Mission Hill Middle School surf team coach Jeff Osborne…

Mission Hill Middle School sent eight students to the Interscholastic Surfing
Association (ISF) Middle School State Surfing Championships, which were held
in waist to overhead surf last Saturday and Sunday (May 17-18) in Oceanside.

Seventh grader Asia Carpenter took seventh overall in girls shortboard. Riding
a borrowed Surftech softop, eighth grader Grady Nixen finished eighth in boys
longboard.