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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Sunday, August 17, 2008

Moore shows that practice makes perfect

By Dayton Morinaga
Advertiser Staff Writer

Hawaii news photo - The Honolulu Advertiser

Carissa Moore

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Carissa Moore's personal summer fun program is closing in style.

Moore won the Girls Who Surf Junior Pro contest at Kewalo Basin yesterday, topping a field that included most of the state's top female surfers under the age of 21.

"I've kind of just been cruising and playing around this summer," Moore said. "I haven't surfed a lot of contests, so it was fun just to see a lot of these girls again and surf with all of them."

Moore, 15, is considered one of the top amateur female surfers in the world. She skipped several summer contests this year, but continued to hone her skills during practice sessions.

Kewalo Basin happens to be one of her favorite practice spots, and it showed yesterday.

Moore was in prime form all day, and capped it with a perfect 10 in the final.

"As the day went on and the tide increased, it got really good," said Moore, who will start her junior year at Punahou School next week. "There were a lot of good waves in the final. I got one really fun one at the beginning, but I didn't catch too many waves at the end of the heat, so I was getting nervous about that."

But Moore completed multiple hard-slashing maneuvers on her opening wave, and the judges rewarded her with the perfect 10. The other three surfers in the final came close, but were never able to catch Moore in the 30-minute final.

"I just tried to push it, do as much as I could, and luckily it worked out," Moore said of her perfect 10.

Moore's top two waves in the final scored a total of 18.5 (out of 20) points.

Alessa Quizon of Makaha placed second with a two-wave score of 16.5. Quizon, a freshman at Wai'anae High, said she saw Moore's impressive opening wave.

"I kind of knew she was in the lead after that, so I was hoping to get in the top two," Quizon said. "I feel like I did my best. It was fun out there, that's the main thing."

Kaua'i surfers Nage Melamed and Alana Blanchard placed third and fourth, respectively.

A pro-am division was also run yesterday, and Moore, Quizon and Melamad advanced to the finals of both the junior pro and pro-am divisions.

The pro-am final will run today.

"It was hard at the end (of the day) because you had to go back-to-back heats," Quizon said.

Moore is also scheduled to compete in the longboard division. She started entering longboard competitions this summer.

The junior pro is considered the highlight division of the Girls Who Surf contest, and offers the most prize money. Moore received $1,000 and Quizon $800.

Today, finals will run in longboard, bodyboard and shortboard divisions. The contest is being run by females, for females.

Girls Who Surf is a company that offers surfing lessons (for males and females). For information, visit www.girlswhosurf.com.

Reach Dayton Morinaga at dmorinaga@honoluluadvertiser.com.