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Monday, March 18, 2024

Young local surfers grab six Eastern finals titles

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The youth surfing movement in southern North Carolina made its impression last weekend as local surfers brought home six championships from the Eastern Surfing Association Championships that drew top surfers from several East Coast states to Nags Head, North Carolina.

One of those champions, 13-year-old Katelyn Sewell, participated for the first time in a surf contest ritual, as her father and family friends “chaired” her off the beach. After surfing the final round of Friday’s Menehune longboard division. she couldn’t hear the announcers, but when her father and family friends came to carry her off the beach on their shoulders, she realized she had won.

“When I got out and found out that I won, I was so surprised,” Sewell said. “I couldn’t believe I had just won Easterns. I didn’t think I would make it out of the first round.”

Sewell is the first-ever girl to win the mixed contest of under-14 surfers, and joined a crew of surfers from the Eastern Surfing Association’s Southern North Carolina division to take trophies.

“That’s another reason we’re proud of her, she whipped up on all of those boys,” said Amy Rose, the division’s director. “She made it to the outside and scored on the bigger waves.”

Sewell, who focuses more on the shortboard, said she doesn’t normally ride a longboard in the bigger conditions.

“I don’t longboard as much, so I wasn’t as nervous about it,” Sewell said.  “In those bigger conditions, I would pick out the better waves and just go for it. I was riding as long as I could and as best as I could.”

Another strong performance came from 12-year-old Owen Moss, who took the Menehune shortboard title for 12-and-under mixed surfers and added a fourth-place finish in the boys under-14 division, Rose said. Moss put up a dominant performance in the Menehune contest, posting a combined score of 15.27, far outpacing the next finisher’s 9.5.

“The waves were really fun, it was better than last year,” he said.

Local surfers dominated the junior women’s longboard under-18 division, taking the first-, second- and fourth-place finishes. Winner Carly Carter was somewhat of an underdog going into the finals, where she edged out Kat Neff and Leah Thompson.

“With one minute left and it was obvious that she was going to win, the tears started rolling,” Rose said. “There was a lot of excitement. “

Thompson, who is an Eastern Surfing Association all-star, was just edged in the girls under-16 shortboard division, where she lost by 0.3 points. However, Rose said that Thompson shrugged off the disappointment to cheer on other local surfers, and “chaired” Trevor Francis, who won the junior men’s under-18 division.

“It was pretty awesome,” she said. “Trevor had a stacked final and everyone was cheering him on. We all went to the water and congratulated him.”

Champions from the southeastern North Carolina region spanned the diversity of surf events. From Topsail Beach, 17-year-old Brycen Jernigan put up a standup paddlesurf performance that drew cheers from the crowd.

“Everyone on the beach was screaming,” Rose said. “He can sling that SUP around like a Menehune slings around a shortboard.”

On the other end of the span was 11-year-old Kai Nau, who won the open bodyboard division, where he beat out kids that were “older and bigger,” Rose said.

Other local winners included two from the adult divisions, with Justin Fulford placing second and Jesse McCrery placing fourth in the Masters division.

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