MICAH BYRNE WINS PIER CLASSIC

ASP WORLD TOUR NEWS:
HUNTINGTON BEACH, California (Sunday, Mar. 25, 2007) - Repeat Vans Pier Classic finalist Micah Byrne (Huntington Beach, CA) scored a sensational win over fellow local Michael Hoisington (Huntington Beach, CA), prodigious junior Eric Geiselman (New Smyrna Beach, FL) and Federico Pilurzu (Tamarindo, CRI) to claim the 2007 Vans Pier Classic presented by Jack’s Surfboards Title.

The Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) North America World Qualifying Series (WQS) 2-Star event culminated a week’s worth of action today that saw the men, women and junior men all lift their respective games as they charged towards the winner’s dais.

Byrne, who was also moonlighting as the official webcast commentator for the Vans Pier Classic, opened the final up solid at his home break blasting away at the shifty afternoon peaks. The progressive natural-footer locked in an excellent 8.25 followed by a 5.75 to jump out to an early lead which he held onto claiming his first ASP WQS victory.

"It was a long week," Byrne said. "I’m so stoked right now - I’m really pumped. I opened up with a pretty good left. I got lucky and it had a really nice section to throw down on for an 8.25. I thought for sure that Hoisington and Pilurzu were going to get the scores they needed. Fortunately the waves went kind of bunk and I didn’t need to get another solid score."

Byrne, who finished third at last season’s Vans Pier Classic, was one of the favored surfers going into the event, and this year’s victory was made doubly-sweet in front of the hometown crowd.

"It was my goal to finish better than I did last year and I knew that was going to be pretty hard since I finished third," Byrne said." I’ve got a new board sponsor in the last few weeks - Steve Boysen - and the boards have been going really well. I had a pretty bad knee injury a couple months back, but that feels a lot better now - today was actually the first day I surfed without my knee brace. I just felt really good and I’m so rapt with this win."

HSS Team Rider Courtney Conlogue also scored well in the women's competition placing 2nd overall.