Before the first day of the State Championships at Seaside Reef in Cardiff, we were anticipating heavy rain and stormy conditions for the entire competition. And we were right about one thing — heavy rain poured on us throughout the morning of the first day, forcing us to take shelter while trying to watch our teammates surf. Despite the rain, wave conditions were fun and glassy at about 2-4ft for the first half of the day, and the rain eventually cleared up. We were excited that all of our women's shortboarders made it through round 1, along with the majority of our men's shortboarders. As heats progressed later in the day, the wind picked up and the waves increased in size, making the reef an even trickier wave to surf. One of our longboarders made it to the semi-finals with an impressive performance, but unfortunately, the majority of our men's shortboarders lost out by round 3. What kept us in the contest was our women shortboarders, with three of our teammates making it to the finals! The conditions on finals day were still tricky but more manageable, with Kalohe Danbara getting 5th place, Maddie Garlough finishing in 4th place, and Makena Burke taking out the win with an 18.67 heat total!!