Courtney Conlogue and Erica Hosseini have had much better days in their young careers. In fact, today probably felt like a car crash.

Both Orange County surfers were crushed in the opening heats in the Honda U.S. Open of Surfing’s Round of 48. Conlogue finished a distant third in a stacked heat behind Hawaii’s Coco Ho and Australia phenom Sally Fitzgibbons. Fellow Aussie Serena Brooke finished fourth.

Ho and Fitzgibbons were right on point, catching every quality right that came through the south end of the contest area. Santa Ana’s Conlogue remained far out of position the entire heat– sitting almost in the dead center of the lineup — and didn’t catch her first wave for ten minutes. 

Fitzgibbons and Ho dueled on the rights until Ho’s 8.83 late in the heat sealed the 16.16-13.67 victory over Fitzgibbons.

“I wasn’t even comfortable with a 15-point lead over any of these girls,” Ho, the daughter of former pro Michael Ho, said afterward. “I’m going to enjoy this while it lasts.”

Conlogue was hard on herself. “This is probably the biggest event of the year. You’ve got to be on your game. I looked like a beginner out there,” she said. “I’m trying to work out my heats, but I didn’t have one of my best today.”

Hosseini also finished a distance from the top in her heat against former world and U.S. Open champ Sofia Mulanovich of Peru. Mulanovich was on fire with a 9.87 and 8.10 and flew to easy 17.97-12.84 victory over Lee Ann Curren, daughter of former world champ Tom Curren.

Like Conlogue, Newport Beach’s Hosseini got out of position early and was never able to find her way back. “I thought I’d catch a couple into the pier and got a really long one, almost too long and had to get out and run down the beach,” Hosseini said. “You win some, you lose some. Next year.”

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.