The best secondary school surfers in the province scored pumping surf at Ahipara last Friday for the third and final event of the 2015 Northland Scholastic Surfing Series.
Contest director Tony Baker noted the competitors were greeted with nice 1 to 2 metre lines peeling down the points and the swell broke throughout the day to continue a memorable winter for waves at the Far North break.
Due to the size of the draw and the tide factor, organisers decided to run the event at two breaks, with the under-14 boys and girls along with the U16 and U18 girls held at Tokanui, the break commonly referred to as Pines, while the U16 and U18 boys heats were run at the outside break of Tauroa, aka Blue House. Not surprisingly, Ahipara surfer Sergio Hansen (Kaitaia College) hit form in the under-18 boys final, applying local knowledge in the deteriorating wind-affected conditions to win ahead of Kohl Mase (Pompallier College), Matt Jensen (Bream Bay College) and Callum Robertson-Barnes (Kerikeri College).
Sergio's younger brother Kalani also impressed in the U16 boys division, eventually securing a third place in a heat featuring Tom Norton (Bream Bay College) and Joseph Critchfield (Rodney College).
"Hansen showed his experience over the shallow reef break, a willingness to attack any section that came his way," Baker noted, but added it was Critchfield who took the win after snagging a set wave in the dying minutes of the final where he "proceeded to unleash a series of smooth backhand carves finishing with a strong closeout manoeuvre on the shallow inside section."
