Collins Is Just in Time to Advance : Surfing: He scores well on final wave of heat to squeak into semifinals.

With only 30 seconds to go, Richie Collins needed a near-perfect wave and an equally impressive ride if he was going to advance to the quarterfinal round in the Body Glove Oceanside surf contest.

Collins milked all he could from his first wave in the 20-minute heat, and then the surf, which had been four to five feet high all day, died suddenly. On the few waves he caught in the next 15 minutes, Collins scored fours and fives on the 10-point scale. In the last minute, he was in last place and needed an 8.67 to move into second and advance.

A Newport Beach native sitting fourth in the national surf standings, Collins caught the last possible wave, carved into it as long as it held and scored an 8.83. He beat Joey Jenkins of North Hollywood by .15 points to survive the third round of the main event.

“That’s like winning the Op Pro right there,” Collins said. “I thought the days of winning my heats like that were long gone.”

Collins began competing 11 years ago at age 14. He competed the last five years on the world tour and has done well on the national tour. Twice he finished fourth in this event, the sixth of 11 stops on the Bud Surf Tour.

“I was just thinking, ‘Why does this keep happening to me? I’m just not getting any waves,’ ” Collins said after the results became official. “In my career, I never score below a 5.5, and here I got a 4.5. I feel like I’m learning all over again.”

Collins also suffers from four herniated discs in his back, the result of surfing and windsurfing injuries. Twice he’s been carried out of the water after contests because of back pain, most dramatically after winning the 1992 Rip Curl Classic at Bells Beach in Australia.

“It’s been fine for four months, but then this morning it started hurting,” he said. “I’ll take an anti-inflammatory (drug) to surf tomorrow.”

Dino Andino and Shane Beschen, both of San Clemente, advanced to the quarterfinals by surviving the day’s toughest heat. The surf picked up just before the two former Bud Surf Tour champions took on a third in Mike Parsons, a world tour competitor who won the national tour in 1991. Pat O’Connell, who co-starred in the recently released motion picture “Endless Summer II” and ranks seventh in the nation, rounded out the foursome.

Each surfer earns points from the best three waves he catches in the 20-minute heat. O’Connell’s score of 22.04 would have been enough to advance in any other heat, but against Beschen and Andino, it was only enough for third.

“That was a pulse from an incoming swell,” tour director Ian Cairns said of the improved conditions. “That’s what it will look like tomorrow.”

Taylor Knox suffered the biggest upset of the day when he was called for paddling interference while trying to beat another surfer to a wave. The violation reduces a surfer’s score to their top two waves instead of three. A Carlsbad native who competes on the world tour, Knox was an early favorite for the event along with Chris Brown and Rob Machado.

Knox protested the call, but it stood. “Without the interference, he’d have won the heat,” Cairns said.

Brown and Machado, who finished first and second in Oceanside in 1993, easily advanced, as did Noah Budroe, Todd Prestage and Todd Miller. Jeff Deffenbaugh of Huntington Beach finished second to Machado in the third round of the main event.

Deffenbaugh, who won the most recent tour event and is second to Kelly Slater in international competition, performs well on the Oceanside beach break, which is similar to conditions in Huntington Beach, and has made the quarterfinals the last two years.

Surfing Notes

In Morey Bodyboarding competition, Guilherme Tamega of Brazil found himself in the uncomfortable position of competing against his girlfriend of five years. Daniela Greitas, who was seeded 34th and performed well in Friday’s trials to advance to the main round, first heat, where she met second-seeded Tamega and No. 15 Brian Wise. Tamega and Hawaiian Mark Dale advanced to the quarterfinals today at 8 a.m. . . . Surfing semifinals begin at 11:20 a.m., and the finals are scheduled for 12:45 p.m. The winner earns 1,000 points on the world qualifying series, which provides a way onto the world championship tour, and $4,000. . . . Bodyboarding finals begin at 12:10 p.m. and the winner receives $1,500.