Billabong Junior Pro at Sunset Beach in Memory of Ronnie Burns

ASP Grade 2 Mens Pro Junior event
ASP Grade 1 Womens Pro Junior event
Sunset Beach Oahu
6 - 7 October 2009

Contest runs in good early season surf 

Surfersvillage Global Surf News, 8 October, 2009 : - - The Billabong Junior Pro at Sunset Beach in Memory of Ronnie  Burns ran over the last two days in fine fashion.  Competitors were  greeted with 3 to 6 foot Hawaiian style surf and glassy conditions for  the duration of the event. This competition is one of the qualifiers  for the annual Billabong World Junior Championships held in North  Narrabeen, ustralia January 3rd thru 10th, 2010.

Event directors Rainos Hayes and Chris Heffner decided to run Tuesday after watching days of swell maps and forecasts.  Day one  started in picture perfect surf with epic waves peeling off of Sunset  Point. The first two rounds of the Junior Mens were completed along  with the quarters, semis, and finals of the Junior Womens division.

The Junior Womens competitors took full advantage of Sunset's barrels and open faces.  This years Junior Women's division saw many  of the top surfers from the U.S. region also competing with Hawaii's  best. In the end it was Catherine Clark from Santa Barbara, Kauai's  Leila Hurst and Nage Melamed along with Honolulu's Carissa Moore  rounding out the
final.
Leila drew first blood scoring a high 7 point ride, setting the bar  for her competitors.  Carissa answered with a big blowtail followed by several roundhouses.  Nage and Catherine answered with waves of their own, but ultimately the Jr Women's final would become a 2 person  battle for first place.  When the final horn blew and the scores were  tabulated,

Oahu's Carissa Moore came out on top.  Carissa surfed  spectacular the whole event and even earned the event's only 10 point  ride in the semifinal.  Coming in 2nd place was Leila Hurst, followed  by Nage Melamed in 3rd with Catherine Clark rounding out the final in  4th place.

Day 2 saw a slight increase in size for the completion of the Junior Men's division.  Competitors had to deal with Sunset's challenging 300 yard long shifting lineup and answered the call with high risk surfing combined with flair and function.  There were quite a few open barrels  on offer, so much so that they became common place and competitors  needed to really slot themselves deep in the tube in order to impress  the judges.

Some of the standouts of the day included; Tanner  Hendrickson, who posted the top heat score (16.34), Kolohe Andino,  Andrew Doheny and Billy Kemper.  Another standout of the day was  Maui's Albee Layer who won every heat on the way to the final and  scored the top wave (9.45) of the day as well as the 2nd highest heat  score (15.95). When the dust settled it was Albee Layer, Kauai's Alex Smith, Oahu's Kiron Jabour and California's Cory Arrambide in the final.  The lone Californian, as well as the only backsider in the final, started off strong and established an early lead. 

All 3 awaiian's answered back with solid scores themselves, but ultimately all 3 required a 2nd  strong score for a backup.  Cory held on to the lead for 29 minutes of  the 30 minute final while searching for the nail in the coffin that  would close the door on the other competitors.   With 45 seconds left  on the clock a solid set hit the Sunset lineup and Kiron Jabour and  Albee Layer did not miss on their opportunity, scoring the necessary  scores to knock Cory from 1st to 3rd.  Albee Layer threw down 2 huge  hacks which moved him into 2nd place, but the real beneficiary of the  last minute set was Kiron

Jabour who answered with a solid hack of his  own followed by backdooring a tube through the west bowl.  The stunned  crowd all but knew that Kiron had just won himself the Billabong  Sunset Jr Pro. Congratulations to 2009's Billabong Sunset Jr Pro Champions: Kiron  Jabour and Carissa Moore.

Big Mahalo's also go out to the partners of the event: ASP Hawaii, Monster Energy drink, Verizon Wireless, Honda and Surfing Magazine.

Jr Men's
1st - Kiron Jabour
2nd - Albee Layer
3rd - Cory Arrambide
4th - Alex Smith

Jr Women's
1st - Carissa Moore
2nd - Leila Hurst
3rd - Nage Melamed
4th - Catherine Clark

www.billabong.com

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Jim Kempton

Junior contests - Surfersvillage