Santa Monica Wins Second CHSSC Skate Competition
May 13 2007 / Simi Valley, CAThe Santa Monica High School skateboard team took the second California High School Skateboarding Club (CHSSC) competition at Skate Lab in Simi Valley today. Santa Monica scored 73 points, followed by Agoura with 64 and Royal finishing third with 59 points.
CHSSC 2nd EVENT RANKING - May 12, 2007
1. Santa Monica - 73 pts.
2. Agoura - 64 pts.
3. Royal - 59 pts.
4. Oak Park - 52 pts.
5. Westlake - 44 pts.
6. Simi Valley - 43 pts.
"Santa Monica has a good, well-rounded team. All of their participants both skated well and scored well” said CHSSC Head Judge Steve Badillo.
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The seven-team CHSSC features skateboarders from Los Angeles area high schools including Agoura, Newbury Park, Oak Park, Royal, Santa Monica, Simi Valley and Westlake. Each CHSSC team has five skaters and is led by a captain.
The format for the second skate street event had teams facing each other in a bracket format with the winning team moving to the next round. Scoring was the same formula as event #1. Each team has three skaters take part, and skater receives two one-minute runs with the best run counting. The three individual runs are added up and the highest team score wins. First and second place were decided in the final round with third through seventh determined by team scores.
There was a good turnout for the event as about 70 people relaxed and watched the street park event in the Skatelab parking under ideal conditions, blue skies and 80 degrees.
As it was with last month's first CHSSC event, the skateboarders also had a lot of fun, laughing and enjoying everyone's rides, and listening to a constantly changing soundtrack on the iPod driven sound system.
“Overall we couldn’t have asked for a better day,” Jeff Stern, CHSSC founder, said, “The skaters set-up the course today. Our goal is to give the skaters freedom; we put out the rails and ramps and they took it upon themselves to set up the course the way they see fit.”
Opening Round
The opening round saw Royal get with a strong performance by Adam Swanson (26 points) and advance past Westlake 57-44; Oak Park, led by Matt Pierce (25 points), overcame Simi Valley 52–43 while Agoura had a bye because of its win in the first event. Santa Monica also received a bye because Newbury Park did not fieldi a team.
Between the opening round and semifinals most skaters took to the course and practiced grinds and jumps. “The sun wakes you up,” said Kristos Augustus (pictured above), a junior from Santa Monica, “we had fun last time and are having fun outside today.”
“I’m more of an outside guy,” said Andy Grande, Westlake senior, who hurt his foot prior to the competition but skated anyway with significant swelling, “Its fun and this is what we do, it’s not serious like playing football.”
Tanner Fazil, a senior from Royal said, “Today is awesome. We are doing much better than the first competition. We are all landing much better.”
Semi-Finals
In the semis Santa Monica put together good runs by Kristos Augustus (23 points), Sante Bentivoglio (22 points) and David Boyle (19 points) to move past Royal, whose Adam Swanson had another solid performance (28 points), followed by Kenny Kruptnick (21 points) and Alex Flores (8 points). Final score: 64-57.
The other semi saw Agoura’s Josh Krakover (27 points), James Jensen (19 points) and Jake Simowitz (13 points) top Oak Park's David Orr (20 points), Matt Pierce (18 points) and Ofir Atia (13 points), 59-52.
FinalsIn a repeat of last month's finals, Agoura and Santa Monica went head-to-head.
Bentivoglio (26), Boyle (24) and Augustus (23) took it up a notch for Santa Monica against Agoura’s Krakover (26), Jensen (23) and Simowitz (15), winning 73-64.
An individual high point was SM's Augustus jumping off a roof three times (pictured, right), breaking three boards but landing the third jump and skating away with a broken tail.
After the team competition an Ollie competition took place with most of the skaters taking part. The highest Ollie is a favorite among street skaters. Josh Krackover from Agoura won the Ollie with 33 inches (almost 3 feet).
Augustus stayed close in the Ollie competition. Badillo said, “Kristos had an amazing late Ollie that I’ve never seen before anywhere.”
Badillo summed up the day saying “if these guys were not having fun they would not show up. They are showing a willingness to participate in something new.”
2007 CHSSC STANDINGS AFTER TWO COMPETITIONS
1. Agoura
1. Santa Monica
3. Westlake
3. Oak Park
5. Royal
6. Simi Valley
7. Newbury Park
2007 CHSSC SCHEDULE
CHSSC Event 1 - STREET - 1ST Room @ Skatelab First Place: Agoura
CHSSC Event 2 - STREET – Outside @ Skatelab First Place: Santa Monica
CHSSC Event 3 - STREET - 2ND Room @ Skatelab DATE: May 26 1:00 PM
CHSSC Event 4 - 8 STAIR - 2ND ROOM @ Skatelab DATE: June 9 1:00 PM
- Lat34.com
