Warriors Weather the Storm at Oceanside

By Francisco Claudio

Westcliff's Surf team is one of the few sports programs that remain at ease when a storm hits the beaches of Southern California. 

As long as they can ride the waves, you'll find a Warrior out in the water.

Last weekend the Warriors competed at Oceanside in their second competition of the season as they start to get closer to the NSSA State competition.

And even though the weather was not the prettiest, the team worked hard and was able to deliver some positive results.

"This weekend was wild," said assistant coach Chelsea Taylor. "We have been thrown around all season switching beaches for safety reasons and are happy to have landed at the Oceanside Harbor. There always seems to be something to surf here so we were excited.

"With a threat of being shut down from the city because of the rain the NSSA decided to get as much into Day 1 of the contest as possible. They created two "contest areas" to run twice as many heats all day long, praying that we didn't get shut down and have to postpone the competition. This sometimes creates a disadvantage as one of the contest areas is usually better than the other and a smaller surfing zone."

The rain did not let up which made for cold conditions and it was a challenge for the athletes to stay warm between their heats. And since the organizers decided to squeeze two days into one, the athletes had very little time to rest or eat in between heats.

"All things considered, our team did incredible and stepped up to the challenging conditions," Taylor said. "We have a huge disadvantage without any female surfers at the moment, but both of our teams are stacked with talent and performed well."

The quarterfinals took place on Sunday and even though the weather had not improved, Warrior Lucas Taub was battling hard to make one of the two spots. But with 30 seconds left one of the other surfers caught a wave which bumped Taub out of second, ending his run.

Taub scored a 5.50 and a 4.30 while the guy who eliminated him scored a 5.93 in the last 30 seconds.

Some notable performances from the two days of competition:

Lucas Taub: Two heat wins, his highest heat total was 14.60. He was the only one to advance to the quarterfinals.

Blaze Roche: Two heat wins and scored the highest heat total of the team all weekend with a 15.50 (6.67 and 8.83).

Jordy Collins: Round one heat win, advanced to round 4. Always a solid surfer who performs well no matter the conditions.

Kylan Crapenhoft: Was brought up to team 1 and stepped up to do an incredible job with the longboard lineup being extremely competitive. He helped to get the team more points with his advancement into the second round.