Doheny falls in quarters

Barry Faulkner

One of the things surfers love about their sport is its spontaneity.

From one day to the next, as each set, even each wave, ripples

shoreward, the product of forces generated as far as a continent

away, there exists the promise of perfection.

So too, however, exists the more routine offshore offshoot that

cursed competitors Friday afternoon at the Surfing America USA

championships just south of the Huntington Beach Pier.

Upon waves that provided barely enough propulsion to lift

shore-break waders off the sandy bottom, surfers staked their contest

survival.

So it was that just two days after earning Wednesday’s only

perfect single-wave score of 10 -- in any division -- Newport Beach

resident Andrew Doheny failed to advance out of the quarterfinals of

the under-14 division.

Competing with three other rivals in a 15-minute heat, the

12-year-old Doheny aggressively pursued even the slightest hint of

the smallish foamy crests that most recreational surfers would

routinely dismiss as unridable.

He was the first rider up in the heat and accrued the second-most

“rides” among the four combatants, who were vying for the top two

spots to advance to the semifinals later in the afternoon.

But each “ride” was brief and allowed little more than one turn

off the lip to impress the judges.

His top score, on that aforementioned first wave, was 4.75 (the

average compilation from all judges, with the highest and lowest

marks thrown out). Only one wave in the heat generated a higher score

-- a 5.15 collected by Luke Davis of Capistrano Beach.

But both Davis and Fisher Heverly, from Emerald Isle, N.C.,

matched Doheny’s 4.75 score .

Davis’ 5.15 and 4.75 gave him a total of 9.90 (only the top two

waves for each competitor count) to win the heat.

Heverly added a 4.15 to total 8.90, while Doheny’s second scoring

wave produced a 3.90 score, leaving him with a total of 8.65, third

in the heat.

Clint Richard from League City, Texas, produced just two scoring

rides, the highest of which was 2.0, to finish fourth.

Doheny’s elimination left him with an empty feeling and no desire

to divulge his thoughts in a brief interview moments after he left

the water.

“I’m just bummed,” said the tanned, blond-headed pre-teenager, who

finished second in the Explorer Menehuene division of the National

Scholastic Surfing Association national championships last week.

Davis was sixth in the same division at NSSA nationals.

Doheny’s father, Mike, said the conditions accentuated the

serendipitous nature of competing in timed heats, before a panel of

judges whose scores often reflect vast subjective disparity.

“I have no qualms,” Mike said of the scoring totals. “But with

small waves like this, it makes it tough for all the kids.”

Mike said his son, who will enter the seventh grade at Ensign

Middle School next fall, has no competitive events on the horizon.

“Rest and relaxation,” Mike said in response to a query about

what’s on tap for Andrew in the recent future.

Doheny’s perfect 10 on Wednesday helped him compile 14.25 points,

good enough to win his heat.

Newport Beach resident Sheila Huber was scheduled to compete in

the women’s open division Wednesday, but did not show up, a contest

spokesman said.