UCSB Surf Team Claims National Championships
by Paul Costales

Jubilant Finalists for UCSB celebrate victory

The National Scholastic Surfing Association (NSSA) is midway through a ten day stint that is their National Championships, and many of our local surfers are competing in individual and team formats. So far the only events that have concluded are the team events for College, High School, and Middle School, which held their Finals in excellent head high conditions on Saturday at Salt Creek. Our local teams at Nationals are UCSB, Carpinteria High School, and Carpinteria Junior High School . The NSSA doesn't usually release the Team results until their banquet this Sunday. However this year the College Champions were announced early, to allow Fox College Sports to cover the college portion of the event as part of the new 3 year deal they signed with the NSSA.

Those College results were good news to Gaucho fans, as the UCSB Surf Team claimed their 11th National Title in a very close contest.

Matt Johnson placed 5th in the Mens Finals for UCSB

We had the chance to catch up with Joe Riggio Jr., co-captain of the UCSB Surf Team, for some details on how it went down. In the early rounds of the event, some of UCSB's most consistent surfers of the year suffered losses, making things look bleak for the Gaucho's. Going into the Finals UCSB trailed SDSU by 6 points. In the Men's Final, Matt Johnson placed 5th, and in the Longboard Final Corey Hartwyk also placed 5th. It was the Lady Gauchos who seemed to have squeaked one through for UCSB in the Women's Final, as Lily Howard placed 6th, and Lipoa Kahaleuahi placed 2nd to give the UCSB Surf Team a 3 point victory over SDSU. Last year UCSB won Nationals against SDSU by 2 points, so it is a good rivalry. The victory will be broadcast by Fox College Sports on August 2nd at 5:00pm.

As far as Carp High and Jr. High, we won't know officially until Sunday, but judging by the results going into the Finals, they weren't in the running. However our local kids have their chance to shine in the individual divisions, which besides running at Salt Creek last week, will be running this week at Trestles. Carpinteria's Conner Coffin is the #1 seed going into the Open Juniors, and he and his brother Parker have a good shot at two other divisions as well. The finals for all divisions will be held on Saturday and there is a good chance one of our local kids will be representing.

All photos are courtesy of Big Joe Riggio.