Event number three of the NSSA 2018-2019 was held at 9th St. Huntington Beach, the surf city of the world. Originally, the third event was scheduled to be in Santa Cruz, but due to expected heavy rains the contest was switched to Huntington. The weather in Southern California also posed a challenge for the contest and as a result the contest was ran all on Sunday with double areas the whole day.

Huntington beach is a beach break wave, meaning that bottom of the ocean is just sand and different piles of sand, called bars, form and create waves as water passes over them. The mix of a low tide with shallow sandbars made for a challenging contest. The men’s heats were up first in the morning with the best conditions of the day. Round one was very successful for both men’s and women’s teams with nearly every surfer advancing. Most notably one of the men’s short boarders, Michael Joshua, scored a perfect barrel in the early morning conditions.

Unfortunately as the day went on a heavy wind tore through the contest area making for some very poor surfing conditions. As the waves got worse the team slowly started to get knocked out from the contest. Luckily, the UC San Diego surf team still had two members who made it all the way to the finals in their category, carrying the whole team on their back. Frankie Seely placed 3rd overall in the women's shortboard division and Michael Joshua placed 6th overall in the longboard division, this was Mike’s first time competing in longboard and he made it all the way to the finals! Overall Huntington was a fun day with the team all bundling up for warmth from the cold wind and watching two of our teammates make it to the finals.