South Coast Boardriders top South Is club
A BIG season has ended in success for the South Coast Boardriders.
For the first time in 15 years, the club has ended its season as the overall top club on the South Island circuit.
The win means South Coast ends North Waimairi’s run of six consecutive titles after it clinched a close victory in Kaikoura over Queens Birthday weekend. It came after accumulating points from the club’s surfers reaching finals at the circuit’s four events.
Tash Civil and Josh Thickpenny both won the senior grades for 30 years and over in women’s and men’s respectively.
Civil also came second in the open women’s grade, while Elliott Brown went close to claiming the under18 men’s title.
South Coast president Duan Reardon said it was a ‘‘pretty massive’’ result for the club, which had been working towards the goal for several years.
‘‘Basically, we’ve been developing our juniors over the last eight years, developing our junior club and it’s flowed on from there,’’ he said.
‘‘A lot of the parents have got kids that surf now, so the juniors are real strong.
‘‘. . . The last couple of years we’ve really given [the South Island circuit] a push.
‘‘We’ve always had people competing in it, but we really gave it a good nudge the last couple of years to get a bigger team there and its paid off.’’
That development, combined with some exceptional talent, had made for a good combination.
Alongside that, numbers were continuing to strengthen in the sport. Record entries had been received in all of this year’s South Island circuit events.
It left the club and the circuit wellplaced for the future and Reardon could see it continuing to grow.
‘‘We’ve definitely got some top talent. We were beating the top North Island surfers as well.
‘‘They were coming down and competing at our South Island events.
‘‘So we’ve already got some really top talent. Then we’ve got a good strong base of juniors coming through.
‘‘It’s a steady flow now, whereas we used to have gaps in the past. Now we’ve got people right through all the age divisions, which is great.’’
The club had its prize giving last weekend.
Brown claimed the top overall club surfer award, while Civil won South Island circuit surfer of the year.
Anika Ayson won the best female, Ruben Peyroux was best junior and Luke Rogers and Lewis Murphy won best under14 and under12 surfer respectively.