Conlogue, Mohr get moving at U.S. Open
July 20th, 2008, 11:12 am · Post a Comment · posted by Shawn Price
Huntington Beach – If you looked carefully, you could see into the future Saturday at the Honda U.S. Open of Surfing.
Waves were good but fickle in the 3-5-foot conditions, and activity was intense with the men’s, junior boys, junior girls and longboarding all competing for time on the day’s schedule under overcast skies.
Courtney Conlogue and Australian surfer Sally Fitzgibbons offered a glimpse of what women’s surfing will look like in a decade. Two young phenoms now, world tour leaders soon enough. Conlogue, the 15-year-old from Santa Ana who made history here last year as the youngest ever to reach the semi-finals of either the men’s or womens contest, took and easy victory in her opening heat in the junior girls. Conlogue’s 9.0 on her second wave allowed her to sit on South Africa’s Nikita Robb while the heat went flat and hold on to a 15.17-11.83 victory.
“I was stoked to get that wave because there wasn’t a lot of waves out there with scoring potential,” Conlogue said. “One heat down, two more to go.”
Fitzgibbons, making history of her own this season as the youngest surfer to qualify for the women’s world tour at age 17, topped Haley Watson in the next heat scoring a 9.5 on her last wave to cruise to a 15.83-7.77 victory.
“It’s pretty inconsistent today. It was whoever got that wave then scrambled around for a back up,” Fitzgibbons said. “But I feel really happy to have qualified so early. Now the pressure’s off and I can relax and have fun.”
Also advancing were Sage Erickson, Coco Ho, and Lee Ann Curren. In the junior boys, Andrew Doheny and Tanner Gudauskas advanced.
In longboarding, Josh Mohr of Huntington Beach advanced and Joel Tudor, the two-time world longboard champ who essentially gave up competitive longboarding for martial arts, was a no-show for his heat.
Longboarding continues today through the semi-finals with three-time world champ Colin McPhillips, Josh Baxter, Taylor Jensen and Mohr in competition. Junior boys and girls also continues through the semi-finals. Men’s Round of 216 finishes today with Doheny, Mike Hoisington and Jason Harris.
