Shea Lopez Makes His Move Too Late, So Cory Advances

He flew through the air with seemingly the greatest of ease, spun his board around 360 degrees and stayed atop as he landed back on the face of the wave.

San Clemente’s Shea Lopez pulled off the biggest maneuver of the first four days of the Bluetorch Pro at Huntington Beach Saturday. Unfortunately, it came a few seconds after the horn sounded ending his fourth-round heat against his brother, Cory, and he came up less than a half point short of advancing to the quarterfinals.

“That was a pretty nice move,” said Cory, who will meet Australia’s Nathan Webster today. “I’m sure he’s bummed it didn’t come a minute earlier. It’s too bad and I feel sorry for him, but I know he’s happy for me.”

Lopez vs. Lopez turned out to be everything the family, and the huge weekend crowd that packed the beach and lined the pier, could have hoped for. It was the most civil of wars, however, with Cory, in the blue jersey, grabbing the lead one minute, and Shea--wearing red although gray might have been more appropriate--wresting it away the next.

Cory, now up to No. 4 in the World Championship Tour rankings, got a long left and snapped four big cutbacks off the lip. Shea, who moved up to No. 16 during the event, broke his board’s tail out of the water and slid down the face of the wave before recovering. Cory went airborne and landed safely. Shea caught a left that lined up clear across the beach and slashed radical turn after radical turn.

Then, all of sudden, the sea went flat and the brothers bobbed on the surface, chatting.

“We were talking about how the girls [in earlier quarterfinal action] had all the big waves,” said Cory, who splits time between San Clemente and Florida.

Shea: “The first thing Cory said was, ‘They gave you a 7.5 on that last wave? Man, they’re making it hard for me.’ I told him he had heard the announcer wrong and it was really a 4.75. I think he was pretty relieved.”

Cory: “I thought the judges had absolutely freaked out over that tail slide.”

Then another set loomed on the horizon, ending the dinner-table conversation, and it was back to the slice and carve.

In the end, when Shea had splashed down after his spectacular-if-too-late aerial, the final tally was: Cory 18, Shea 17.65.

“He only needed a 5.1 to win it at the end and Shea can get a five in his sleep, but the wave didn’t come until a little too late,” Cory said. “But this is how we wanted it to be. It was a really tight heat that could have gone either way. No one got blown out and no one looked stupid.”

And Cory’s charge up the WCT rankings continued.

“Cory’s having a great year, he’s fighting for the title,” Shea said. “No one will be rooting harder for him [today].”

A VERY HEATED HEAT

Australia’s Lynette MacKenzie and Layne Beachley, who took over No. 1 in the women’s rankings Saturday with her victory in the elleven Pro women’s event, were battling it out in the first quarterfinal of the morning when Beachley, who had priority, and MacKenzie caught the same wave.

MacKenzie immediately kicked out of the wave, but the rules clearly state that a competitor cannot take off on the same wave as an opponent who has priority. MacKenzie was called for interference, which virtually ended her chance of winning since the penalty meant she would be scored on only two waves while Beachley’s top three would count. MacKenzie, No. 9 in the world, showed her displeasure with the judges’ decision on her next wave when she sent a two-armed, two-fingered salute up toward the judges’ tower at the end of the ride.

It was a rather mild display for MacKenzie, who has unleashed obscenity-laced tirades and broken surfboards in half in the past, but it didn’t go unnoticed.

“We’ve already suspended her, fined her and forced to go to anger-management counseling,” said Assn. of Surfing Professionals tour director Al Hunt. “Actually, she was pretty calm compared to last week in Durban [South Africa] when she smashed a surfboard.

“She had been pretty good for awhile before Durban, but we’ve got an ASP executive board meeting [tonight] and Lynette is one of the items on the agenda.”

MacKenzie said she didn’t see Beachley paddling for the wave and immediately “flicked off” the wave when she saw her.

“Sometimes they call it and sometimes they don’t,” she said softly. “They might as well just tell you to paddle in because it’s impossible to come back from that. There’s not much you can do. I thought I was pretty good this time.”

OK. At least no equipment had to die.

BYE-BYE HUNTINGTON?

Professional surfers, who own 50% of the world tour, have recently formed a management group called the World Professional Surfers Assn. in an effort to improve prize money and get better venues for WCT events.

A group of about 10 members met Saturday night, trying to establish a preliminary agenda for newly elected president Sunny Garcia to present to the ASP executive board.

“Huntington is a great venue and I love it, but it’s not a great wave,” said Garcia, the No. 1-ranked surfer in the world, who beat San Clemente’s Shane Beschen to advance to the quarterfinals against Hawaii’s Kalani Robb.

Huntington Beach will be host to a WCT event for at least two more years because of a contract with the ASP, Hunt said, but the event might be reduced to a World Qualifying Series contest--one step down from the WCT--after that.

“It’s kind of like telling pro golfers that you’re going to hold the Masters at a pitch-and-putt course instead of Augusta National,” Hunt said. “And now that Billabong has put together the event at Trestles [Sept. 24-29], all these Orange County-based sponsors will still have a place to do their thing.”

The sponsors’ expo and extreme-sports exhibitions will be set up in downtown San Clemente during the Billabong Pro with big video screens showing the surfing, which will be held at the less-accessible point break of Lower Trestles located just south of San Clemente.

OUT OF THE WOODS INTO THE SEA

Cardiff’s Rob Machado, who hasn’t won a WCT event since 1997, is in the quarterfinals but he doesn’t like the waves at Huntington Beach any better than most of his peers do. He does feel he has one advantage, though.

“I can sleep in my own bed and get up and watch the British Open,” he said. “Watching Tiger [Woods] pumps me up.”