Pic by Paul Danovaro:
Left to Right: Southern Cross Uni winners Jakob Dolan, Matty Job, Lloyd Mather and Anthony Williams.
(Merewether beach, Newcastle Australia, 8 March 2019)
Reigning Australian University team champs Southern Cross University have won the Westfield Kotara Uni Team Challenge as part of Surfest Newcastle Australia 2019.
Thirteen teams consisting of three competitors each came from as far away as the Gold Coast to contest the inaugural event.
While crisp and clean 2-3 feet waves allowed for performance surfing and high scores early in the morning, the strong north-easterly made it far more difficult for scoring from mid-morning into the afternoon.
Southern Cross team captain Maddy Job, who is studying a Bachelor of Accounting, said the conditions the day was good fun and great competition,
“We started off really strong and held that energy for the rest of the day.
“It was an amazing opportunity to use the infrastructure that the big QS has, so it made it feel a much bigger event that uni sports games usually are,” he said.
“We don’t get the funding to do big Uni events and so to be part of such a big event and spend time in the athlete’s area and feel like a pro is great.
“The Uni really supports surfing and we have quite a few competitors on the QS and JaKob Dolan trains a Chinese team over in China,” he said.
Surfest organiser Warren Smith said he hopes the inaugural event will be a regular fixture on the Surfest calendar.
“There’s a real interest in team surfing events and the quality of the surfing was quite exceptional. Great to see the team who travelled all the way from the Goldie and who are the reigning Australian University champions win today,” he said.
The next event at Surfest Newcastle Australia is the Sanbah Cadet Cup presented by the University of Newcastle which gets underway tomorrow morning at 8am at Merewether beach.
Results: Westfield Kotara Uni Team Challenge
1. Southern Cross Uni (130.4)
(Matty Job, Jakob Dolan, Lloyd Mather, Anthony Williams)
2. Macquarie University (119.9)
3. University of Newcastle 2 (103.8)
4. University of Newcastle 1 (100.6)
