Scholastic Surfers Update
by Paul Costales

With all the conferences in the National Scholastic Surfers Association having run several contests, it's a good time to check in with some of our local surf scholars to see how things are going.

UCSB competed in their first event of the year a few weekends ago at Blacks Beach in San Diego. UCSB claimed the National Championship last year - their 11th - as they dominated all year long, winning all but one contest. However, many of the veterans graduated - which left the team much younger and with lower expectations. Returning names such as Joe Riggio, Lipoa Kahaleuahi, and a slew of new talent made the trek down to San Diego, and the long hike down to Blacks Beach. The waves were notably poor, with neither a NW nor a SW swell in the water to work the A-Frame magic that Blacks is famous for. The Women's Division shone for UCSB in both the A team and the B Team. Notable surfers for the B Team were Alyssa Newmann and Rachel Harris, the later whose name you might recognize from her great local performance on the Carpinteria High Surf Team. Rachel's college debut was a smashing success as she advanced all the way to the semifinals and barely missed getting into the Finals. From the A Team, both Lipoa Kahaleuahi and Lily Howard made it to the finals, with Lipoa winning the Finals heat and Lily placing 3rd.

The Men didn't perform as well as the women, with the best performance being Donovan Cunnison who made it the Quarterfinals. Joe Riggio and Isaac Zoller were knocked out in the 3rd round and Jon Mangiagli was knocked out in the 1st round. In the Longboard division, both Woody Robinson and Paul Steinberg were knocked out in the semifinals after winning their respective quarterfinal heats.

The UCSB A Team tallied up 103 points for 4th place behind SDSU, Pt. Loma, and Mira Costa, while the B Team placed 9th. UCSB heads back down to San Diego in a few weeks for their next contest at Mission Beach. An official roster for the 2008-2009 UCSB Surf Team:
Joe Riggio, Matt Schulman, Jon Mangiagli, Isaac Zoller, Peter Kuriyama, Woody Robinson, Paul Steinberg, Kyle Naughton, Max Baumann, Jeremy Diaz, David Ruderman, Daniel Kraft, Evan Lamb, Stephen Thielscher, Jan Kalas, Chris Lomenzo, Donavon Cunnison, Alex Colvin, Jeff Weins, Cam McElroy, Lipoa Kahaleuahi, Lily Howard, Alyssa Newbs, Kristen Brady, Jillian Roberts, Rachel Harris, Sea O'toole, Terrance Alemann, Ryan Cavan, Guido Chiappa, Mike Tucker, Conor Macken, Tyler Nodine, Sam Einstein, Camille Collett, and Dave Scadron.
Heading out of college and into the Gold Coast Explorer Conference, we have had 4 contests so far with the most recent in Morro Bay a few weeks ago. In that event Shane Orr of Santa Barbara placed 2nd in Men's, while Kokoro Tamatsuri placed 1st in Juniors'. Lakey Peterson (who was NSSA surfer of the week after winning Event #3) placed 2nd in the Women's and 1st in Girls. For the really young shredders in Menehuene, Derek McAllister place 6th and Patrick Curren placed 5th. The next Gold Coast contest is November 22nd in Ventura. Overall after 4 contests in Gold Coast we have the following breakdown of local talent at the top of the charts:

Men's:
Kokoro Tomatsuri: 2nd
Shane Orr: 3rd

Women's:
Glennie Rodgers: 5th
Lakey Peterson: 7th

Juniors':
Kokoro Tomatsuri: 3rd
Conner Coffin: 4th

Boys:
Pat Curren: 3rd
Parker Coffin: 7th

Menehuene:
Pat Curren: 2nd
Decker McAllister: 5th

Local surfers have also been surfing in other conferences such as Southwest and Northwest. In the highly competitive Southwest Open, Patrick Curren is doing well in Boy's, the Coffin brothers (Parker and Conner) are doing well in Juniors', and Lakey Peterson is doing well in Women's. The next Southwest Open contest is this weekend in Oceanside. There may have been local names we missed in our reporting, so feel free to enlighten us in the comments.

Special thanks to Joseph Riggio, Lipoa Kahaleuahi, Peter Kuriyama, and the NSSA for providing information.

Photo credit: Peter Kuriyama

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