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Halfway through the ASP WQS 2-Star Vans Pier Classic
and the ASP Pro Junior Grade-2 Ezekiel Pro Junior, things were looking good for
the East Coast contingent. Seven of the final 32 Men’s surfers hailed from the
Rightside, along with six of the final 32 Juniors.
On the Men’s side, North Carolina vet Ben Bourgeois
lodged the highest single-wave and combined heat score of Day One, New Smyrna
Beach’s Nils Schweizer bagged two straight heat wins, fellow NSBer Evan
Geiselman won one of his own, and Jax Beach’s Cody Thompson posted the
second-highest heat score of the Round of 64 to knock out grom superstar Kolohe
Andino. Duval dudes Asher Nolan and Evan Thompson were also in the hunt, along
with Tarheel Nick Rupp.
But the Round of 32 decimated the Eastside field, as
Schweizer, Geiselman, Rupp, and Cody and Evan Thompson all barely missed advancing
in 3rd-place. Bourgeois ran out of steam to finish 4th, while Nolan was the
lone East Coast quarterfinalist, advancing behind Kauai prodigy Tyler Newton
while knocking Evan T. out. Asher then fell in the quarters to eventual event
winner Dylan Goodale and Anthony Petruso.
In Ezekiel Pro Junior competition, a host of young
newcomers to ASP competition — Puerto Rico’s Jose Tavares and Juan Carlos
Martinez, South Florida’s Ryan Croteau, North Florida’s Keto Burns, and New
Jersey’s PJ Raia — all battled valiantly but couldn’t get out of the
Round of 64. New York rising star Balaram Stack was the only East Coast grom to
make it out of the Round of 48, before Geiselman took advantage of his
momentous win at the Ron Jon Sebastian Inlet Junior Pro earlier this month to
secure the highest heat total of the Round of 32 with a 16.35. “Coming here off
of my first Pro Junior win definitely helps my confidence,” Geiselman told the
ASP. “My focus is on the Pro Junior this year, so I want to get another good
result here in Huntington.”
But Evan G. stumbled in the quarterfinals, falling to
another in-form Hawaiian, Tyler Newton, along with Orange County eccentric
Andrew Doheny. That will temporarily knock Evan from the top spot of ASP North
America’s Juniors ratings, and make qualifying for the World Junior Tour later
this year that much harder. The only other East Coast Junior quarterfinalist
was Virginia Beach, VA’s, Michael Dunphy, who suffered his own stinging defeat
in a stacked heat against Keanu Asing, Victor Done, and eventual winner Kolohe
Andino.
In other ASP news, the East Coast’s top two WQS
heat-seekers, Cory Lopez and Brian Toth, made the biggest push at the 6-Star
O’Neill Cold Water Classic in Tasmania. Both unfortunately finished in
3rd-place in the Round of 48, although Lopez maintained his #26 World Ranking
— just inside the ASP’s proposed mid-season World Tour cutoff of 32
— while Toth moved up from #82 to #64.
Next up, all eyes turn to Bells Beach for the second
stop of the ASP World Tour, while the WQS squad ventures to Scotland for the
second installation of O’Neill’s coveted Cold Water Classic series. Stay tuned
to www.EasternSurf.com for ongoing coverage of the East Coast’s many ASP
surfers.
For full
results, photos, and video from the Vans Pier Classic and Ezekiel Pro Junior,
visit www.vans.com/pierclassic.
For
everything related to the O’Neill Cold Water Classic, visit www.oneill.com/cwc.
Updated ASP World
Rankings can be found at www.aspworldtour.com; ASP Pro
Junior rankings can be found at www.aspnorthamerica.org
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