WET ‘N’ WILD WITH ROCKIN’ FIG:

The local surfers were ripping it up at the last Western Surfing Association’s Championship tour event at Ninth Street, Taco Bell Reef a few weeks back.

It was in some fun 2- to 3-foot-plus surf with some reforms to the inside. Starting out with the younger divisions, in super groms 11 and younger Huntington Beach’s Justin Harrison ripped his way to first place with Ryan Harris placing third and Chandler Stirrat fourth, respectively.

Boys shortboard 12 and 13 saw Tony Bartovich slash his way to second place while Cameron Faris, the ratings leader, was fifth. In boys longboard, the style master, Surf City’s Tony Morelli, took first-place honors doing some fancy footwork and Bartovich rounded out the top four placings. Bartovich also was third in boys 14-15 shortboard making three finals.

In boys 13-17 age bracket, Huntington’s Cody Bertrand took fifth place with some nice moves and in the tough mens division 18-29, Ryan Mcafee was busting some tail to finish fourth.

Open mens saw some nice surfing done by Alex Gullet finishing third. In the master blaster’s division, second in the U.S. last season, Danny “Misko” Misken blasted his way to third position, and in the women’s 30 and up Kami Kamei tore her way to third place. H.B.’s Troy Bertrand blew up for the win in seniors gouging some heavy turns.

The National Scholastic Surfing Assn. had its Southwest Conference Open season No. 7 event at the Huntington Beach Pier in some fun surf too. Big ripping was seen in all divisions, but leading the way in the mini groms was Kanoa Igarashi taking the win. In juniors, Kolohe Andino, a U.S. team member, was killing it for the victory and H.B.’s Evan Kane caught some nice ones as well to place third.

In women’s, U.S. team members battled it out with Santa Ana’s Courtney Conlogue edging Huntington’s Sara Taylor for the win; both gals were tearing it up. And in the big time, open mens final Carlsbad’s Brent Reilly was unstoppable and took the huge win!

Sad news at the Action Sports Trade Show weekend. Huntington’s Dane Williams, 23, went missing early Jan. 26. His body was found Jan. 29 about 7 miles away in an alley. Williams worked for Hurley International, was a regular out in the water and downtown Huntington Beach, and will be sadly missed.

That’s it for now. Fig over and out.

RICK FIGNETTI is a 10-time West Coast champion and a longtime KROQ-FM surfologist. He owns a surf shop on Main Street. You can reach him at (714) 536-1058.