National Scholastic Surfing Championships

Surfing New Zealand
Manu Bay, Raglan New Zealand
20 - 24 April 2009

NZ National Surf Champs move from Raglan to Ruapuke

Surfersvillage Global Surf News, 21 April, 2009 : - - The National Scholastic Surfing Championships relocated 30 minutes south of Raglan to Ruapuke Beach today (Tuesday 21st April) for day two of the event.  New Zealand’s top school girls entered the water for the first time looking to make the most of what was on offer.

While conditions were near flat at Manu Bay, Ruapuke offered up clean 1.0m waves all day with unexpected light winds which made conditions highly contestable.

Defending Under 18 Girls Champion India Wray - Murane (Wai) got her campaign off to a great start winning her first round match up against Hayley Baxter (Cant), Tessa Randrup (Wai) and Hannah Morely (HBay).  Wray – Murane posted a 9.0 point total heat score to move through to the semifinals alongside Baxter in second place.

Wray – Murane helped the Waikato team to victory in 2008 where her team won three individual titles.  Being on home soil the New Zealand representative will want to emulate the success of 2008 for both herself and her team which includes three serious title contenders including herself and the Poulter brother sister combination Ben and Alexis.

Alexis Poulter posted the day’s highest heat score 14.25 out of a possible 20.  Poulter bucked the trend of low scoring match ups with a 7.25 and a 7.0 point ride in her heat to move through to the semifinals.  Like Wray – Murane, Poulter has recently returned from competing at the 2009 Quiksilver ISA World Junior Championships.  Both surfers placed 25th at the event.

Other girls to impress and move through their heats included Nicola Colson – Koster (Auck) and Anna Hawes (W.C) in the Under 18 Girls Division and Grace Spiers (WGM) and Rosa Thompson (Auck) in the Under 16 Girls Division.

Thompson continued Auckland’s great run of results today with a number of their team progressing through heats.  The team has only lost one surfer to the requalifying rounds.  They surfed to success in the Under 18 Girls with Nicola Colson – Koster and also the Under 14 Girls with Hannah Kohn and the Under 18 Longboard Division with Dylan Pidgeon.

The Bay of Plenty team, a front runner after day one of the event, also suffered defeats with two of their girls moving into the requalifying rounds.  However it was the strength of their longboard surfers that saw them through the latter part of the day with Sam Guthrie and Rick Williamson both moving through to the semifinals of the division.  Guthrie was particularly impressive scoring the highest heat score of the round – 11.10 out of a possible 20 points.

Canterbury surfer Luke O’Neill won his heat in the Longboard Division as well.  The talented young surfer was among a number of his team mates that pushed through their heats today.  They included Alethea Lock, Sam Courtney and Billy Harmon.

The Gisborne team fought back on day two with some impressive performances by Jayda Martin - Fitzharris in the Under 14 Girls, Adam Cranston in the requalifying round of the Under 18 Boys and Abigail Daunton in the Under 16 Girls Division.  However Cranston fell late in the day to Sean Parker (Tara) and Todd Hale (Nrth) and is now out of the event.

The small team from the West Coast had success on day two with Anna Hawes moving through to the semifinals of the Under 18 Girls Division.  Jai Forsyth also impressed in the Under 16 Boys requalifying rounds posting the events highest single wave score to date – 9.0 out of a possible 10 points. Forsyth now moves through to the second round of the event which will be contested on Wednesday.

Only three teams remain with the full complement of surfers – Auckland, Bay of Plenty and Taranaki.  All other teams have had surfers eliminated from the event. Surf conditions are expected to improve for the third day of the event (Wednesday 22nd April) with an increase in size and light offshore winds.  A call on the location for day three and order of events will be made at 7.00am each morning. 

 

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Previous reports:
# 1 : Kiwi National Scholastic Surf Champs launch at Raglan
# 2 : Coming soon
# 3 : Coming soon
# 4 : Coming soon  

 

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Ben Kennings

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