The final day of the 2008 SCION NYBB Pro Presented by Verizon Wireless was nothing short of an amazing event.
Mother Nature was the events best friend today as tropical storm Hana had moved off the coast of NY providing swell and offshore/cross shore winds for the first round of the Men’s Pro.
Starting off the contest was a focused Jeremy Wright who progressed through his heat with ease, along with a Puerto Rico’s Jorge Colomar.
In heat two of round one Jason Bitzer seemed to have a field day with the solid conditions linking a barrel to roll to barrel combo and a solid invert to back up his first wave for the win. Miguel Ochoa of Long Beach did his home town proud placing second to an on fire Jeff Hubbard who was keeping the level of surfing high through the event.
An upset went down with three Californian riders going down in round one. Rusty Friesen, Ray Machado and Justin Crossman all could not find their rhythm and were headed back to NYC to enjoy the rest of their vacations. Willy Petrovick (HI), David Phillps (HI), Sean Kircher (NY) and Brian Stoehr (MD) all put together solid performances pushing them through to the quarter final round.
Hawaiian hero Jonah Romero was not as fortunate and was left on the beach to watch his brother Jacob advance into the next round.
In the quarters, much of the local talent started to lose their steam after great first round efforts. Names such as former East Coast Champ John Heyman and famous photographer Matt Clack along with local charger Tim Seif (all from Long Island), where taken down along with NJ talent Ryan Wade.
Just prior to the Semi final heats the winds had shifted more west making the offshore conditions more textured and difficult to read. This left riders like Jason Bitzer( NJ/HI), Miguel Ochoa (NY),Sean Kricher (NY) and Brian Stoehr (MD) off their game. Jason and Brian finished 3rd and 4th in their heats respectively, both not finding the second score they needed to advance.
Miguel Ochoa had put in a solid run of maneuvers with dual rolls on a set wave but it was not enough to oust Jeff Hubbard and Jacob Romero of Hawaii. Placing 4th in the Semi Finals was Sean Kricher who after having a great event thus far seemed to fall victim to the wrong place wrong time syndrome that comes part and parcel with wave selection and contests.
The all Hawaiian final was an all out slug fest, with Willy Petrovick striking the first blow in the form of an ARS to Roll/Spin combo. It took riders ten minutes to counter Willy’s first nailed attempt and it was Jeff Hubbard’s “Gorf” (inverted air forward spin) that put him on the board behind Willy’s stronger first wave.
David Phillips soon after answered with a cleanly rotated air reverse followed by a back up wave of ARS to Roll. Willy again put together an ARS to Roll combo that had him in the lead with two similar scores for both his waves.
Jeff still needing a back up score was in tricky position as the time winded down. David Phillips found a smaller but clean faced wave to find his back up score with an ARS to Roll which had him in close proximity of Willy’s top two.
In the final two minutes of the final Jeff Hubbard snagged a medium size left set wave which he tore to shreds from his first bottom turn. It was an ARS (Air Roll Spin), spin to roll to spin combination that set him up for his second consecutive win at the SCION NYBB Pro presented by Verizon Wireless.
With the results tallied it was Jeff who lead the webcast out as the winner thanking the USBA sponsors such as SCION, Bodyglove Bodyboards, Verizon Wireless and Eastcoastbodyboards.com for the support over the past 4 years. The USBA signed off the webcast with a shot of Jeff calling his wife heather to inform her of the win while young fans lined up for his signature!
This was another great year for the NYBB PRO, an amazing event that featured both a high level of competition and stellar conditions. The USBA and staff would like to thank SCION, Verizon Wireless and all of our other sponsors, friends and family for making it possible again in 2008.