Laguna Beach High Surf Teams Dominate Weekend Competition

Story submitted by Laguna Beach High surf team coaches Alisa Cairns and Scott Finn:

Laguna Beach High School surf team had a fantastic Scholastic Surf Series event on Saturday at Oceanside Pier SS. We completely dominated the event.

First up, we surfed and won team competition against Wilson High School and moved nearly the entire team through into the individual competition in each of the divisions, which consisted of five high schools competing.

By the finals, we had a clean sweep in the boys' shortboard, with all six of our Laguna boys in the six-man final!

Cameron DePfyffer ended up taking top honors, he had a great day, winning both the shortboard and longboard contest. Meanwhile, Cameron Zuziak surfed really well and took 2nd, his best result. Tobie Grierson was once again strong for us and finished 3rd in shortboard and also did double duty on the longboard.

Blair Conklin had a great day as well, taking 4th in shortboard with several good performances along the way, and he took another win in the bodyboard. Willy Hogan had several hard-fought heats to make the final, taking 5th.

A big effort was put in by freshman Zach Levine, who jumped in the event for us at the last second as it was starting and made it all the way to the finals, finishing with a very respectable 6th.

The conditions for the event were very testing, with a strong current, very cold water and air, lot's of power, and close outs so everyone had to really work hard just to get in position and find the right waves.

Eric Siegrist surfed in the longboard competition and did really well, finishing the day in 2nd, but the day didn't start out the best for him. Just before the event got underway, he went out for a quick practice and ended up breaking his board in half.

Our girls had a tough time, but really tried hard. Coco Putnam is coming off a shoulder injury, so all the paddling was tough, but she ended up taking 4th overall in the longboard.

Meanwhile, Kira Hamilton was feeling really sick, but went out to help the team anyway. She is a trooper.

This was a really good event for the Laguna Beach High School team. Everyone seemed to really thrive, with the majority of the team coming home with medals for their efforts.

A big thank-you once again to Thurston for letting us share their tent and also their team moms for sharing some great food. Thurston did really well in the middle school competition, finishing 3rd overall!

We will keep you posted on the makeup league finals event for boys' shortboard, looking like it might happen now in February. The next Scholastic Surf Series event will take place Saturday, Feb. 2, at San Clemente Pier. Thank you all for your big effort and support!