SURFING / OP PRO CHAMPIONSHIPS : Garcia’s Victory Helps in Taking Care of Taxing Problem

Hawaii’s Sunny Garcia traces his motivation for winning the Op Pro surfing championships back to April 15. Tax day.

“The day I became more focused on winning was the day I found out I owed back taxes,” said Garcia, who won his first Op Pro Saturday at the Huntington Beach Pier.

“I still owe taxes to the IRS. And I have a wife, two kids and another on the way.”

Garcia made a dent in his debt, taking home $8,000 for winning the $87,000 world qualifying event in five- to six-foot waves at the pier.

An estimated crowd of 20,000 watched Garcia capitalize on two big waves and win with 30.27 points. Trialist Jojo De Olivenca from Brazil was second at 27.43, followed by San Clemente’s Shane Beschen (25.63) and two-time Op champion Barton Lynch of Australia (21.93).

Garcia, of Makaha, Hawaii, added another $2,000 to his winnings later in the day, leading Hawaii to an 89.1-84.11 victory over Australia in the tag-team final.

Santa Barbara’s Kim Mearig ended a two-year retirement to win her second Op title, edging five-time Op champion Frieda Zamba of Flagler Beach, Fla., 27.27-26.7. Mearig, who also won the Op in 1983, earned $3,000.

Other champions were Chris Strother of Carlsbad in the junior amateur division and Joel Tudor of San Diego in the longboard division.

This contest belonged to Garcia, 23, who was making his second appearance in an Op final. He reached the 1987 finals as a 17-year-old trialist but lost to Lynch.

He helped erase that memory with two big waves Saturday.

After scoring a 7.5 out of 10 on his opening wave, Garcia fell twice attempting to throw big moves. He picked up a 6.0 and a 6.5 on other solid waves before scrambling with Beschen to catch an big wave with 4 minutes 50 seconds left in the heat.

Beschen grabbed the wave and went to his right, Garcia went left, and guess who had the better ride?

It was Garcia, who threw consecutive floater moves and scored a 9.0, tying him with De Olivenca for the best wave of the day. The score also pushed Garcia into the lead for good.

“My first thought after the 9.0 was that I might win instead of getting second all the time,” said Garcia, who has finished second, third twice and fifth in eight Op appearances.

De Olivenca joined Garcia as the only trialists to reach an Op final in the event’s 12-year history. The second-place finish capped a great run for the Brazilian in his first Op appearance.

De Olivenca won his semifinal earlier with a 9.0 ride on an overhead wave with 10 minutes left in the heat. He finished with 29.7 points to Beschen’s 29.43.

Lynch flirted with elimination in the other semifinal, sitting in fourth place until scoring a 5.2 on a wave with 10 seconds left to move past Hawaii’s Shane Dorian and Santa Barbara’s Chris Brown and into the qualifying spot. Garcia’s 28 points dominated the other semifinal.

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Women’s finals: Mearig, 29, the 1983 Op champion, added her second title by taking control with a 7.6 ride with eight minutes left.

The former world champion said she was surprised to win the event, especially coming off her two-year retirement. But she wasn’t nearly as surprised as her husband, Brian, who was home baby-sitting their 1-year-old son, Justin.

“I called him and he said, ‘What? You won?’ ” Mearig said.

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Tag-team finals: Derek Ho and Shane Dorian each came up with solid waves in the final 12 minutes to help Hawaii win its first team title.

Hawaii led by 36-hundredths of a point with 11 minutes left, but Dorian’s third wave pushed the lead to one point, and a 5.0, a 5.87 and a 6.25 by Ho gave Hawaii the lead for good.

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Longboard finals: Tudor won $1,000 for winning the Op’s first longboard event.

The San Diego high school senior took over midway through the heat to edge defending world champion Joey Hawkins of Huntington Beach, 28.46-27.71.

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Op Junior amateur finals: Strother surfed 12 waves, four more than any other competitor, to edge Hawaii’s Kalani Robb, 29.36-27.2, to win his first Op title.

Strother scored an 8.0, 7.93, 9.0 and 6.43 for the victory.

Op Notes

ESPN will televise the Op Pro Aug. 9 at 7 p.m. The Op Junior will be televised July 13 at 10:30 p.m. Joan Allen of Long Beach won the Miss Op Sports Model Contest. Ericka Monty of Tustin was first runner-up, and Kimberly Doyel of Corona del Mar was second runner-up.