On Sunday, November 22, the Santa CruzMountain competition surf team faced Aptos High’s surf team in a tightly contested competition at WaddellBeach. The contest site was originally set for Pleasure Point in Santa Cruz, but waves in town were so small that the Santa Cruz Scholastic Surf League organizers quickly shifted to a spot most likely to amplify the minimal swell.
In morning team heats, Aviv Ben-Dashan of Los Gatos High, Paul Colosi of St. Francis (Watsonville) and Liam Rielly of St. Francis (Mountain View) did well enough to advance to quarterfinals or semifinals in individual competition. Colosi advanced furthest in men’s shortboard with a 6th place finish in the semis. Rielly placed 6th in the men’s longboard semis.
In women’s competition, all Mountain surfers advanced out of their team heats to at least the semifinal rounds including Sophie Northcott of San Lorenzo Valley High, who advanced in both shortboard and longboard, Apple Hart of San Lorenzo Valley High, who made the semis in women’s shortboard after placing second in an alternate round, and Casey Walsh of Woodside Priory School, who also advanced out of alternate competition in both shortboard and longboard. April Martin-Hansen of San Lorenzo Valley High and Shelby Robinett of St. Francis High (Watsonville) made it all the way through to the finals. Martin-Hansen placed 6th overall in women’s shortboard out of all competitors in the League. Robinett placed 4th in women’s shortboard and 6th in women’s longboard.
The morning team competition was extremely close with just a three point difference in the final score; the Mountain crew won 51-48. One key to their victory was the strength of their women’s roster. Aptos had three women longboarders but no women shortboarders to compete against the Mountain team.
Unlike the League’s previous contest at Manresa, where the waves were punishingly powerful, conditions for the Waddell contest were challenging because the swell was so weak. Surfers had to work hard to try to find waves that would give them enough of a ride to fit in some point-earning maneuvers.
“In some heats, especially the semifinals when the tide dropped and the waves got even smaller and more crumbly, it was sometimes just a matter of whether you could fit in one more turn than someone else did,” says Martin-Hansen.
The Santa Cruz Mountain surf team is made up of high school students from local schools including San Lorenzo Valley High and Scotts Valley High as well as St. FrancisHigh School in Watsonville and several in Santa ClaraCounty. The team has won their first two competitions of the Santa Cruz Scholastic Surf League season with just three League contests remaining for 2015-2016.
