Collins narrowly moves on at U.S. Open of Surfing

Meah Collins graduated from Edison High in June, and the Costa Mesa resident hopes to set out for a long career in surfing.

It’s always nice for Collins to compete close to home in Huntington Beach at the Vans U.S. Open of Surfing, though.

“It’s probably one of the most special events of the year for me, because everyone’s down here watching me,” Collins said. “I have all of my friends and family here to support me. It’s close to heart. It’s a hard contest, though, with all of the pressure in the background and everything, but it’s still my favorite.”

Collins was almost bounced out of the Junior Women’s Pro contest in the quarterfinals for the second straight year. Instead, the 17-year-old moved on by the narrowest of margins at the south side of the Huntington Beach Pier.

Collins scored a 10.83 in the quarterfinals to place second in her four-person heat and narrowly advance. Teresa Bonvalot of Portugal won the heat with a 13.43, while San Clemente’s Kirra Pinkerton was the hard-luck third-place finisher, failing to advance in third place with a score of 10.77, just six-hundredths behind Collins.

Pinkerton caught a wave in the final seconds of the 25-minute heat but it ended up earning a 4.17 score, not quite the 4.67 she needed to move on.

“It was very stressful,” Collins said of competing against her good friend Pinkerton, who like Collins has a sponsorship from Hurley. “You’re just watching her, like, fall, fall. Obviously, you don’t want to be mean and stuff. But you’re just like, ‘Oh my gosh, please, no.’ After she made it and got a good rip … I knew it was going to be up to the judges. I just hope and prayed I would make it through, because Kirra is an amazing surfer. It’s really cool to compete against her.”

Collins briefly moved into first place in the heat with a ride of 7.0 with just less than 10 minutes left. It turned out to be her best ride by far, and she said that’s something she needs to change for Saturday, when the Junior Women’s Pro semifinals and final will both be surfed.

Collins’ semifinal will also include Bonvalot, Macy Callaghan of Australia and Tiare Thompson of La Jolla.

“I’m hoping that tomorrow I can get two good waves, instead of just one,” she said. “That’s probably not going to make it tomorrow, with all of the girls that are surfing so well.”

But regardless of how she fares Saturday, Collins is excited for her future. She’s the daughter of former pro surfer Richie Collins, the 1989 Op Pro champion in Huntington Beach. Meah is coming off a ninth-place finish in Oceanside last weekend.

“It’s been my goal for a long time now, to do surfing full-time,” Meah Collins said. “Now that I’m done with school, I can finally commit 100% to surfing. It’s a nice change in my life, and I think it’s going to be for the best.”

Huntington Beach native Kanoa Igarashi was just happy to move on in the men’s competition at the World Surf League Qualifying Series event. Igarashi was honest about his performance in Round 4. He finished second in his heat with a two-wave score of 12.36, which was behind 2015 U.S. Open champ Hiroto Ohhara of Japan (13.80) but ahead of Jeremy Flores of France (11.77).

Second in the heat of three was enough to advance, but Igarashi wasn’t happy about his performance.

“I surfed really bad,” Igarashi said. “I pretty much surfed the heat strategically really bad, too. But, you know, those are the heats you kind of have to grind through. I’m stoked to get that out of the way. It’s all right. Tomorrow’s another day. Hopefully I can put it together tomorrow.”

Igarashi will surf Saturday morning in Round 5 (the round of 16) at the U.S. Open. The contest moves to head-to-head competition, and Igarashi will do battle with Stu Kennedy of Australia in Heat 2, with only one of them advancing to the quarterfinals Sunday morning.

Igarashi has advanced to the U.S. Open semifinals each of the last two years. He is hopeful that he got a bad heat out of the way on Friday.

“You need to have those [heats],” Igarashi said. “It’s almost scary when you don’t get those throughout the contest. Later on, you can’t get away with those heats. Every year, I’ve had a good result here. Heats like this, you have to have a little bit of luck on your side, and that one I did.”

Another local surfing in the Junior Women’s Pro contest was Kayla Coscino, who will be a junior at Laguna Beach High. Coscino battled in the first round but failed to advance, placing third in her heat with a score of 6.16.

The BMX men’s semifinals were also held Friday, and the top seven qualifiers were all from the United States. They included Kris Fox of Fountain Valley, who qualified third with a semifinal score of 86.25. Dennis Enarson of San Diego qualified first with 90.25 points, followed by Kevin Peraza of Tucson, Ariz. with 88.75 points in second.

The Vans BMX Pro Cup women’s final is scheduled for noon to 1:30 p.m. Sunday at the Vans Pro Park, with the men’s final to follow from 3 to 5 p.m.

In skateboarding action, the Vans Park Series men’s preliminaries also took place on Friday afternoon. Karl Berglind of Sweden had the highest score of 89.05, followed by Jagger Eaton of Arizona with an 86.01.

Plenty of surfing is on the schedule for Saturday, starting with the men’s contest Round 5 from 7:30 to 11:30 a.m. Next comes the Junior Women’s Pro and Junior Men’s Pro semifinals, with the title heats for each event to follow at 1:10 p.m. and 1:40 p.m., respectively.

matthew.szabo@latimes.com

Twitter: @mjszabo