Morro’s magic

WET AND WILD WITH ROCKIN’ FIG

The Professional Surfing Tour of America headed up the coast to

the chilly waters of Morro Bay last week for the Central Coast Pro.

In the men’s shortboard final, it was Huntington Beach whiz kid

Timmy Reyes busting the big moves and taking the victory over

Laguna’s Bron Heussenstam.

Reyes is in the top 50 of the World Qualifying Series ratings,

trying to gain some momentum before surfing the last two big six-star

events -- one in Brazil and one in Hawaii. With a couple good results

he could be heading to the World Tour. I saw him out in the water the

other day and he was surfing radically, fast and precise, throwing

some mean moves. Timmy also said he was trying to focus on a couple

good results to finish the season off.

Making it to the quarter-finals before losing out were Huntington

Beach’s rad men, Shaun Ward and Willie Safreed, and also Seal Beach’s

Ryan Simmons, last year’s overall points champ.

In longboarding, Huntington style master Dodger Kremel took a

close decision over San Clemente’s Josh Baxter, 19.8 to 19.6 . And in

the women’s, it was ripper Holly Beck from Palos Verdes taking the

win over Australian Prue Jeffries.

Next up is the Championships at Ventura today through Oct. 20.

The National Scholastic Surfing Assn. is in full swing. A little

over a week ago it held its second Open Season event at the

Huntington Beach Pier.

In probably the toughest division, San Clemente’s Travis Mellem

was tearing it up and got the win. Second was Ventura’s Dane

Reynolds, and rounding out the top three was Huntington High’s

shredder Brett Simpson. Simpson also had the high score in the Air

Show, with a 9.0 for a huge reverse air.

Newport’s Ford Archibald took the boys’ division -- that’s two in

a row for him -- and Andrew Doheny was second. In mini-groms, his

true division, Doheny took the win and is undefeated thus far.

Women’s was dominated by fellow Newport Beacher, Erica Hosseini, who

also has the ratings lead and Huntington’s Ewa Lewington pulled into

second with some great rides. Rounding it out in longboarding was

Huntington’s Justin Hugron, placing third.

Last weekend was the NSSA Explorer Season event two, held at Trail

Six in San Clemente. In the men’s division, Huntington Beach’s Dan

Fennell, Steven Przybylowski and Todd Hutton placed third, fourth and

fifth, respectively.

We saw a couple duel finalists down there. Topping the list was

Seal Beach’s Chas Wickwire, who was on fire and won both masters’ and

seniors’ divisions, while recent transplant to Huntington Beach Sean

MacDonald came in fourth and third behind him in the respective

divisions. In super-seniors’, Pat Schlick made it two in a row with

another victory, while yours truly, Figster, took fourth and P.T. --

Peter Townend -- took fifth in a close one for all placings.

For the younger guns in menehunes, Andrew Doheny took second.

That’s it for now. See ya.

* RICK FIGNETTI is a seven-time West Coast champion, has

announced the U.S. Open of Surfing the last nine years and has been

the KROQ-FM surfologist for the last 17 years. He owns a surf shop

on Main Street. You can reach him at (714) 536-1058.