Taranaki team second at surfing champs
The Taranaki team finished second at the National Scholastic Surfing Championships in Raglan last week, with surfers winning two divisions along the way.
The group, coached by Jarred Hancox, finished on 7485 points after a strong finals day, 978 points behind hosts Waikato who topped the leader board with 8463.
Sitting in sixth position going into the finals days, strong performances by Tom Butland, Natasha Gouldsbury, Ryder Pennington and Kalani Louis saw the team surge into second.
Butland won the coveted under-18 boys division, an impressive result given he can still surf in the under-16 division.
The Oakura teen surfed up a division to allow his team to have a more even spread of athletes and the tactical decision paid off.
‘‘I’m pretty stoked, eh. I wasn’t expecting to make the under-18 boys final. Everyone is so good in this division,’’ Butland said in an emailed statement.
Butland was trailing for much of the heat but posted an 8.15-point ride (out of 10) on his final wave.
He took off 15 seconds before the hooter sounded, with the wave score not coming through until after the heat had finished flipping the final on its head.
Fellow team-mate Gouldsbury also claimed a national title, taking out the under-16 girls division, while Ryder Pennington and Kalani Louis finished second and third behind Raglan’s Navryn Malone in the under-14 boys. Louis also received The Adam Clegg Breakthrough Performance of the Event award alongside Christchurch’s Ava Henderson.
Hancox said he was proud of the team, especially Butland’s last second heroics.
The final team points were: Waikato, 8463, Taranaki, 7485, Auckland, 7305, Canterbury, 7265, Bay of Plenty, 7233, Northland,
7213, Gisborne, 6289, West Coast,
5133, Coromandel, 4959, Wellington, 4503, and Hawke’s Bay, 4025.