longboarding<\/a> for three, said he remained positive and tried not to get nervous.<\/p>\n\u201cI kept that mindset through the whole heat, even if I fell on a wave, I wouldn\u2019t put myself down for that.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said he was most proud of his wave selection.<\/p>\n
\u201cNormally, when I\u2019m in a heat, I get quite rushed and I\u2019ll go for any wave I can, but I slowed down a bit and picked the wave based on what I reckon I\u2019d get the best scores on.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"]()
Jaxon Willows, 17, was the team captain and won the U18 longboard divisions in his final year competing at the scholastic competitions. Photo \/ PhotoCPL<\/p>\n
Jaxon said the difference between longboarding and shortboarding was the energy.<\/p>\n
\u201cLongboarding is more about style and flow with the wave, making it all look smooth; shortboarding it\u2019s just about how radical you can get your turns up into the lip.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said this win was his best yet because he beat one of his main competitors from Auckland.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was the best atmosphere ever, the whole team was in on it, it wasn\u2019t just me, everyone was super stoked.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sage Fritchley, 17, competed in the U18 girls competition, which was one of the closest of the event.<\/p>\n
She capped off her four years with the team by making it to the semifinal, but missed the final heat by 0.1 points.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was raining, and it was high tide; there were not a lot of waves coming through.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sage competed in the heat with her teammate Ariana Walker, who won the gold medal.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s definitely like one of the highlights of my year, and teaches me it\u2019s not the end of the world winning, and to support everyone,\u201d Sage said. <\/p>\n
She started competitively surfing at 14-years-old and said she loved the freedom of being in the ocean and the feeling of dropping into a wave.<\/p>\n
![\"]()
Sage Fritchley competed in her fourth and final scholastics competition, and coach Jason Pitkeathly said Sage has played a huge part in Bay surfing. Photo \/ PhotoCPL<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to show people that they can get into competing later and still be good at it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bay of Plenty coach Jason Pitkeathly said he was stoked to lead a \u201cbunch of legends\u201d to the win. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve learned from previous editions that it\u2019s all about teamwork and unity, that\u2019s when you get the best results, and this year we had a great team, they were incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said surfing was an individual sport, but this event was unique in its team-based structure.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey may not always be in the division they want, but it\u2019s all about pulling together as a team and working for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the team was made up of good mates who competed frequently together.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo for these kids, it\u2019s pretty special when you can win.\u201d<\/p>\n
2025 Bay of Plenty Scholastics Team:<\/p>\n
Beau Broadhurst, Haru Marsden, Izzy Evans, Sage Fritchley, Ariana Walker, Sol Fritchley, Remy Sale, Zen Mouldey, Jaxon Willows, Charlie Hartstone, Jayda Bramley and Zade Pitkeathly.<\/p>\n
Kaitlyn Morrell<\/a> is a multimedia journalist for the Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post. She has lived in the region for several years and studied journalism at Massey University.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Individual champions were crowned in each division, as well as an overall team champion based on accumulated points.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65647,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[53186,1975,1561,5759,2741,3556,111,139,69,1118,1562,35770,213,2564,2563],"class_list":["post-65646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-12th","tag-at","tag-bay","tag-championships","tag-claim","tag-national","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-plenty","tag-scholastic","tag-sports","tag-surfers","tag-title"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}