Words: Sydney Pizza // Media: @devindmedia
Day two of the 44th annual Zap Pro/Am World Championships of Skimboarding is officially in the books! After another long day and a ridiculous amount of fun, we have more updates and more exciting team news. Today’s conditions were a bit bigger than Friday’s, but still in the 1-3-foot range with more consistent bigger sets showing up. Another sunny and beautiful day in Dewey with a solid and building southwest wind that switched to northeast at the very end of the day.
Starting the day off with a banger the pros hit the water. The Pro Men’s round three consisting of Leo Freitas, Elian Juarez, Mason Broussard, and ET Beaugrand, went off with some of the longest liners and sickest combos. Mason and Elian in the same heat, both killed it finding the longer liners, and throwing some crazy combos both advanced and were the remaining two Zap representatives in the fourth round of the Pro Mens, right after round three of the Pro Women.
Round three of the Pro Women, saw Alex Yokley make a crazy comeback with her last wave of the heat, the longest liner to 360 spin up the beach, to take the win and move onto finals day! Heat two was Sydney Pizza taking the win and Casey McCullough taking second to move on to finals day as well. Casey made the waves work for her with nice backside wraps to cover ups, and some frontside liners to barrels. Syd pulled out a clean three shuv out to the wave, dropping a 7.23, the biggest score of the Pro Women so far in the contest and some nice tech back in from some solid waves. Finals day is now set with Alex vs Casey, and Syd vs Julia Dias.
Into round four of the Pro Men, Eilan went head-to-head with Dane Cameron and just coming up shy of the win with 21.90 points, did a crazy bigger spin re-entry off the lip, a 720 spin out to the wave with a three shuv back up the beach, and two three shuvs out, caught some of the longest liners of the day. He earned himself a very respectable 7th place finish for the weekend! The last heat of round four was Mason taking on Sean Newbert, who also found some sick liners, a big spin re-entry and a three shuv out, bigger spins and late shuvs back up the beach, with a heat total of 22.17 just coming up shy of the semi-finals but finishing in 6th for the weekend! Very nicely done boys!
From there we went straight to the amateurs for the rest of the day, where we saw Maverick Smetts and the Mini Boys take the water, showing what the future holds and boy is it bright! Straight into the Semi-Pro round two heats, Evan Rubin, Brady Crall, Yuan Bonhayag, and Trent Moranda, all killed it, showing three very different approaches to the classic Dewey liner. Yuan taking a much speedier approach, being able to really maneuver down the line and get all that he can out of the wave. Trent taking a more technical view and working in big spins, three shuvs, and air re-entries. Brady does the craziest mix of it all throwing stuff on the lip, and down the line. While Evan had a solid mix of both, finding both the open faces and mixing in some tech. All three guys made their way into the round three of the Semi-Pros, where Trent and Brady did more of their magic on the lip, the face and up the beach to advance into the Semi-Pro semifinals tomorrow!
Next up was the Women’s division where Willow Huellemeier, absolutely dominated her quarterfinal heat with a standout frontside, a solid backside and some flat ground tech mixed in, took the win in her heat and is stoked to be into finals day. The Boys division hit the water shortly after, where Brody Chandler-Thompson and Gio Tomasi did the thing! Gio found some epic frontside liners with solid tech back up the beach, and one solid liner to cover up to move onto finals day. Brody had the standout wave of his heat with a full backside wrap on a chest high wave in the critical section to a solid barrel. We will see both Gio and Brody on finals day.
To round out the day we had the Mens quarterfinals hit the water when the wind switched to about 20 miles per hour out of the northeast, but don’t worry that didn’t affect our Zap guys! Brady Crall, threw three shuvs off the lip back up the beach and out to the liners to secure first place in his heat and move on again to finals day!
It was a jam packed day, and now we are onto finals day, with another full day lined up, everyone is stoked and we will check back in after the awards ceremony!
Check out the LIVESTREAM OF THE EVENT HERE!