<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"\"&lt;p&gt;&lt;img alt=\\\"\\\" src=\\\"http:\\/\\/image.surfingmagazine.com\\/f\\/news\\/surfing-amateur\\/27183472+w545+st0\\/nssa-062706.jpg\\\" title=\\\"nssa-062706\\\" class=\\\"alignnone\\\" \\/&gt;&lt;\\/p&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;The portable generators are purring, the extra porta-potties are up and waiting, the camera men are poised, and the crowds are\\u2014well, it\\u2019s Lowers, they\\u2019re always there, but this time they\\u2019re all on the beach.&lt;\\/p&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;From the competitors to the fans, everyone looked ready for the first day of Nationals at Trestles on Tuesday, June 27th. Sure, there was thunder, rain, heat, cold, and so much wind that they had to tie down the judges\\u2019 scaffolding with ropes to keep it from blowing over, but there was also surf; and this year\\u2019s crop of surfers held nothing back once they stepped in the water.&lt;\\/p&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=\\\"http:\\/\\/surfingthemag.com\\/surfing-photo-video\\/surfing-photo-dept\\/light-box-nssa-national-champs-062806\\/index.html\\\"&gt;&lt;img src=\\\"http:\\/\\/www.surfingthemag.com\\/lightbox-button.jpg\\\" width=\\\"248\\\" height=\\\"69\\\" border=\\\"0\\\" align=\\\"left\\\" \\/&gt;&lt;\\/a&gt;\\u201cI\\u2019ve been calling the level of surfing since Nationals last year,\\u201d said director Janice Aragon, looking tired but happy at the day\\u2019s end. \\u201cWe didn\\u2019t have too many graduates so I knew the bar was going to be higher, and it\\u2019s pretty obvious after some of the surfing today that it was.\\u201d&lt;\\/p&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;Just watching round 2 of the {{{Explorer}}} Juniors was enough proof to realize that these young surfers haven\\u2019t just raised the bar for their age group, they\\u2019ve ripped the thing off its hinges and chucked it into the air. Maui\\u2019s Kai Barger worked his backside on the rights in his heat, pulling off nearly a dozen top to bottom turns and arcing carves per-a-wave, earning him one the highest scoring heats for the day. Indeed he had one of the most powerful surfing style\\u2019s out there.&lt;\\/p&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;\\u201cI\\u2019ll tell ya, the Hawaiians are blowing up,\\u201d Janice pointed out. \\u201cThey have style, they\\u2019re radical, they\\u2019re focused, and they come here to get the gold which shows in their surfing.\\u201d&lt;\\/p&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;And then there was Heat 4 in Round 2 where Casey Brown and Clay Marzo battled it out for first, with Brown posting a 9 and Clay posting a 10\\u2014via his signature tail-whip. Following a flat heat 9, heat 10 opened with a set and the waves continued to come through. Brown went right, holding nothing back in his turns and Clay answered him by dropping in on a left and doing what he does best despite his injured foot.&lt;\\/p&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;\\u201cI got staff infection surfing in Indo,\\u201d Clay said, limping out of the water after his heat. \\u201cThe bandage came off when I was surfing, but I\\u2019m just glad I pulled off some waves.\\u201d&lt;\\/p&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;Round 1 of the Expolrer Menehuene went down today, too, with the usual suspects\\u2014Ezekiel Lau, Kolohe Andino, and Evan Geiselman standing out above the pack&lt;\\/p&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;\\u201cI was fired up in my heat because Ezekiel got a 9.5 in his before mine and I wanted to beat that,\\u201d said Kolohe Andino.&lt;\\/p&gt;\\n\""^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.surfingmagazine.com/news/nssa-national-championships-062706/>