Mailan Nguyen
Staff Writer
On May 9, the Mira Costa High School surf team took on 12 different schools from the South Bay League at the Hermosa Beach pier, competing in the All-Stars competition. The Mustangs came away with a win and had at least two surfers in each final.
In the All-Stars Competition there was a total of 120 surfers who entered. Each surfer was guaranteed one 15 minute heat against 6 other surfers in each heat. After all the surfers competed in the heat, the top 3 from each heat moved onto the next round. The bottom three were knocked out of the competition, leaving the final 6 to compete in the final.
“The previous day before the All-Stars competition, most of the surfers that participated in it had also gone to the South Bay Boardriders contest where they were there for 12 hours,” surf coach Tracy Geller said. “The surfers were already exhausted going into it, but still managed to make pretty amazing performances.”
The All-Stars competition was entered by 22 surfers who represented Costa. The surfers were put in five different categories which included body board, boys and girls long board, and boys and girls short board.
“Because of all the great performances from the Costa surfers, I would like to say that it was my coaching, but the fact is that it was all them and their hard work and dedication,” Geller said.
Senior captain Luc Jacquemetton won first place for the body board division, senior Peter Neal won first for boys long board, junior Cody Purcell won first for boys short board and freshman Kyra Williams won first for girls long and short board.
“Everyone surfed really well at All-Stars even though the surf was not the best,” Williams said. “I am really happy that we went undefeated the whole season in Bay League.”
During the competition, the weather was cold and windy which affected the surfer’s performances. It caused the waves to go from good contest conditions, to terrible according to coach Geller.
“The day started out with a high tide and the waves were fat, then a little later they got really good,” Geller said. “By the end of the day they were terrible for the girl’s division, resulting in the site completely shutting down and by then the waves were almost non-existent.”
The Mustangs ended their league season undefeated. Their next competition will be against Huntington Beach High School at 26th Street, Manhattan Beach. This will take place on May 19 at 6:30 A.M.
“Everybody on the team did really well, especially because we won every division and it was cool to see everybody surfing since they all did so good,” Purcell said. “I hope we do really good in our next competition especially because it’s one of our last one.”
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