After winning the National Interscholastic College Surf Championships for the past four years, Point Loma Nazarene University\u2019s surf team has more than earned the label “Tiny but mighty.”
\nAt 3,200 students, PLNU\u2019s enrollment is minuscule compared to the universities it competes against, but when most of those students are surfers, and the school sits above one of the best surf breaks in San Diego, it\u2019s no longer a surprise why Point Loma is ranked the No. 3 best surf school in the country. “Even though there\u2019s not as many students on campus, the proportion of students that do surf is probably way higher here than at most other schools,” said Madeline Lomonaco, a senior at Point Loma and four-year member of the school\u2019s surf team. “We\u2019re not only able to hold our own during competitions, but finish in the top three. I never felt like we had a hinderance.”
\nAll college surf teams compete in the National Scholastic Surfing Association (NSSA), which is the highest amateur competitive surfing association in the United States. The regular college team season is a four-event schedule, leading up to the state championships. After state, the top eight teams go on to the national championships at Salt Creek in June. Point Loma\u2019s surfers are currently preparing for Seaside Reef\u2019s state championships, which start Friday, March 1.
\n“I\u2019m excited for the state champs because it\u2019s actually at my own local surf spot,” said Encinitas local and Point Loma senior Brennan Aubol, who co-captains the team with Andrew Niemann. “It\u2019ll be really rewarding to do a last hoorah at a place close to home. It\u2019s one of the last events I\u2019ll probably ever do with PLNU so I\u2019m mostly focusing on just enjoying it.”
\nPoint Loma will be competing with some big-name schools such as San Diego State University, and San Francisco State University. Lomonaco says that though the team lost a couple star seniors (Jordan Kudla and Timmy Metcaf) in the same year competition has shown visible growth, the team isn\u2019t worried. “We\u2019ve seen some great leadership rise up and encouragement is definitely one of our strengths as a team,” said Lomonaco. “We\u2019re there to watch each other\u2019s heats and give tips. We\u2019re very communal. We look to each other for guidance and improvement.”
\n“We embraced team camaraderie, regardless of whether we win or lose,” added Niemann, known as “Nemo” to his teammates and who, on Monday, won NSSA\u2019s Surfer of the Week. That camaraderie Lomonaco, Niemann and Aubol all attribute to Point Loma\u2019s smaller student capacity. While its small size might not have given the team much recognition, Loma has provided their key to success \u2013 knowing each other both in and out of the water. “Before I transferred, I was surfing at Mira Costa and we\u2019d always lose competitions against Point Loma,” said Aubol. “I could always tell Point Loma was a lot closer as a team. Everyone was friends and really knew how to work with each other\u2019s strengths.”
\nThe Point Loma surf team does not have a coach, nor are they considered an official organized sport by the school or the NCAA, but it\u2019s these close bonds, the occasional team bowling trip and, naturally, hard work that they hope will award the team another victory in both state and nationals. “Our success the last few years has definitely helped get us noticed in the community,” said Aubol. “We\u2019re known to the public as being one of the top surf schools, if not the top surf school. States and nationals are more widely recognized in the surfing community, so we\u2019re hoping to still get Point Loma\u2019s surf team noticed again. I think we can do that if we really put our minds to it.
\nAfter, hopefully, pulling off another big win, maybe being recognized as an official sport is not far behind for the Point Loma surf team.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After winning the National Interscholastic College Surf Championships for the past four years, Point Loma Nazarene University\u2019s surf team has more than earned the label “Tiny but mighty.” At 3,200 students, PLNU\u2019s enrollment is minuscule compared to the universities it competes against, but when most of those students are surfers, and the school sits above […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":272273,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11561","_seopress_titles_title":"Point Loma Nazarene surf team sets sights on another state championship","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11551,11561,11553],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-272272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-peninsula-beacon","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}