SUNSET BEACH, Oahu/Hawaii (Saturday, January 11, 2014) - The third-annual Sunset Beach Pro Junior is quickly approaching. The waiting period is January 15 through 25 and with a promising swell forecast, this year will undoubtedly serve up some challenging conditions for the world’s best Junior surfers.
The Sunset Beach Pro Junior has become a truly international event with participants from all over the world including Australia, Brazil, Japan, Europe, South America and North America.
The top pro junior surfer’s know that in today’s day and age you have to perform well in Hawaii in order to really become one of the world’s best surfers.
Sunset beach is world renown as one of the heaviest and most challenging waves on the ASP Qualifying Series and is the ultimate proving ground for today’s aspiring professionals. This venue is incredibly prestigious as it is one of the stops on the Vans Triple Crown and for these young surfers to have the opportunity to compete in a world-class wave like Sunset Beach is absolutely priceless.
There is a massive contingent of up and coming Hawaiian surfers that will be battling for the North Shore Surf Shop Pro Junior title. Seth Moniz finished a close second last year and was only 15 years old at the time. Seth and his brother Josh have been competing in a few WQS events in the last year and have a very mature approach to wave riding for being so young. They both have a very good eye for picking waves and finding the barrel, which usually gives the biggest scores at Sunset Beach. These two will definitely be ones to watch when the event starts. Isaiah Moniz is the older brother and he has also been surfing really well at Sunset in the past few months making it to the Quarterfinals of last years HIC Pro. Isaiah will also be in the event and very motivated to one up his younger siblings.
Keala Naihe is from the island of Hawaii and suffered a severe broken leg in the Semifinal heat of last year’s event. He literally snapped his leg riding a wave in his heat and almost made the final even though he only surfed half his heat. He is now fully recovered and will be very motivated to do well in this year’s event.
There is a very strong group of surfer’s from the North Shore that will be vying for the title and putting their local knowledge to the test. Kalani David won the Pipeline Pro Junior last year and has really grown in the last year making his over all performance much more powerful. Kalani is an incredible talent and has really been charging on the bigger days at Pipe and Sunset. Makai Mcnamara is a former runner up in the event and has spent a lot of time surfing Sunset with his brother Landon, Luke Shepardson and Eala Stewart. These guys will all be hungry for the win.
Parker Coffin finished 4th last year and put on a powerful display of backside surfing throughout the entire event. He will be back this year to take it three places further.
Last year’s event winner Ian Crane and third place finisher Keanu Asing will not be competing this year due to their age and out growing the Pro Junior events.
The Pro Junior events are the perfect stepping stone for all the young aspiring surfer’s in the world, and with Pro Junior events now at two world class waves on the North Shore of Oahu- Sunset Beach and Pipeline. These young athletes will have all the experience they need if they do make it to the upper ranks of Professional Surfing.
There will also be a women’s division in the Sunset Pro Junior and defending champion Moana Jones has been putting in a lot of practice out Sunset recently on some solid days. Moana looks to be preparing to defend her title against a hotly contested group of young women. Tatiana Weston-Webb and Mahina Maeda were two stand outs during last years Hawaiian Pro Junior events and they will be in the hunt for the title.
This event is a true grass roots event and is mainly sponsored by the local community. Here is a brief list of some of the local companies who helped make this event possible.
Cutter Auto Group, Da Hui, Turtle Bay, Jerry’s Pizza, Wyland Galleries, Banzai Sushi, Lui Buenos and many more!
Liam Mcnamara and the North Shore Surf Shop crew have worked hard to give these Juniors some real venues with real waves, live webcast and real publicity to help take these kids and the sport of surfing to a whole new level.
