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photo gallery by Lia Coffey
Unlike traditional high school sports like baseball, basketball, and football, competition surfing is an individual sport. Besides maybe splitting a peak with a teammate, competitive surfers rely on themselves and their performances on any given wave in a set 15 minute heat against five other competitors. Competitors’ places are taken from their best two waves from a ten wave maximum. The results of the heat are tallied up for the overall score of the team.
About 13 years ago, professional surfer Brad Gerlach introduced “The Game,” a surf contest with more of a team format. The format puts seven divisions in a heat of one hour and fifteen minutes. What encourages teamwork is each division has a maximum of three waves with no time limit — once a surfer gets his or her three waves, he or she runs to the beach to high five the next competitive surfer.
“This format brings a little bit more fun to the league by mixing it up,” said Dickie O’Reilly, league director of the South Bay Scholastic Surfing Association, who first introduced the format two years ago.
The format also adds strategy. Each coach must decide who their “whammy” surfer is going to be and what order he or she is going to be placed. A whammy is when the surfer claims their wave to double their score. There is one per a heat.
“The kids are always excited about this contest,” said South High Coach Lee Mcarthur.
Conditions at the Hermosa Beach for last Saturday were slightly onshore with two to three foot waves.
“With lowtide at 6 a.m., waves will be getting better as the tide fills in,” O’Reilly said.
After the first round and the semi, the teams in the final included South High, Redondo Union High, Palos Verdes High, Peninsula, with Mira Costa High fielding two teams, #1 and #2.
As predicted, by the final the higher tide cleaned up the shape. Unexpectedly, however, the wind turned offshore and the water surface glassed off.
PV’s Peter Healy surfed as his team’s whammy the entire contest. In the final, he claimed whammy on a set right of the pier with a couple of solid hits. Mira Costa’s Pat Komick has one of the smoothest styles in the league. He pulled a giant coaster on a set wave on his last wave before slapping hands with teammate Sarah Kohrogi. Kohrogi followed suit with a floater on an outside left.
The sixth division of the heat, men’s shortboard, stacked four whammies and two whammies from previous rounds against each other. Redondo’s Kyle Beatty dominated the first round scoring high on a reeling left then claiming it with a double pump. His teammate Drake Brown took over the responsibilities going head-to-head with Healy earlier in the heat. Beatty scored by switching his attention to the rights off the pier. South’s Chris Stimpfl doubled his wave on a roundhouse redirect while Pennisula’s Will Ried had a big backside lip bash on an inside set.
The surfer to watch was Mira Costa’s Cody Purcell. He let the fins out on a left that broke across the entire contest zone for the highest score of the meet.
After the final, the crowd of competitors and spectators gathered around O’Reilly, anticipating the results. Mira Costa team #1 continued its unbeaten streak. Second went to Redondo. Mira Costa team #2 took third and South placed fourth. Fifth went to PV and sixth place finisher was Peninsula.
