Stingrays and a Shark Sighting: 2016-2017 Scholastic Surf Series Event #3

Jake Levine, and Jameson Roller

Wild Day For LBHS Surf at Scholastic Surf Series Event #3, Full of Stingrays and a Shark Sighting

We had a Wild and Crazy day on Sunday at Huntington Beach Pier Southside at the Scholastic Surf Series Event. First up several team members had gone up North to Santa Cruz for another event and when that got cancelled due to terrible weather they made their way to HB to compete. We started out the day with Team competition. Laguna Beach High school was up against Santa Margareta. As usual everyone surfed really well as a team and we took a big overall win by a large margin 67-37. The waves were super fun clean 3-4 peaks and it stayed glassy all day with nice sunny weather and no wind!

We did have to do some scrambling with unexpected things coming up throughout the day. Firstly we were trying to find Sam Starr who was competing in Longboard and had gone out for a quick warm up. On his way in to grab his jersey he stepped on a Stingray and was being helped by the lifeguards as he was clearly in extreme pain. We then got the rest of the LB team together with Jackson Jenkins filling in to join Jameson Roller and Joseph Schenk. Our Boys and Girls Shortboard had already done outstanding in their first heat with all of them going through to individual competition later in the day. Travis Booth, Liam McCue, Jett North, Noah North, Jake Levine and Jackson Jenkins along with Claire Kelly, Destiny Thompson who also did Longboard and Kayla Coscino filling in nicely for an injured Maya Takabayshi (wishing her a speedy recovery) all were standouts throughout the day. Meanwhile a few girls in later heats from J Serra were also being treated for stingrays and the Lifeguards said they had treated 20 people the day before.

Next up was the Bodyboard Final and Travis Booth jumped on board and performed great finishing in 3rd overall. From there Travis won another shortboard Quarter final heat advancing to the Final with his win along with Liam McCue taking a win and Jake Levine still going strong in 2nd. In Quarter Final number 3, brothers Noah North and Jett North were completely ripping their heat apart. As it was coming to an end an announcement was suddenly made that the event was being called off for the day as there had been a 8-10ft shark sighting and the Lifeguards were closing the beaches immediately for the next 24 hours.

As Noah made his way in from the heat, he too stepped on a Stingray and was in complete agony. The Lifeguards worked on him for a number of hours and he finally was on his way home with his parents thinking he was good to go, however he ended up needing a trip to Hoag hospital for X-rays, antibiotics and pain medicine before turning the corner.

The event will now conclude during the next Scholastic Surf Series event in Jan 22 at San Clemente Pier.

Thank you to all the Parents who supported us helping put up and take down the tent, providing food, good cheer and total support dealing with the Stingrays.

From your Coaches Alisa Cairns and Scott Finn