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Delaware senior surfs in USA Championships

Jennifer Abrams competes in the women’s final at the 2006 Mid-Atlantic Regional Surfing Championships in May in South Carolina. Photo courtesy of Art Baltrotsky

12:02 p.m., July 11, 2006--University of Delaware senior Jennifer Abrams is in Oceanside, Calif., this week to compete in the Surfing America USA Championships being held July 11-19.

Abrams earned a trip to the national competition after winning the Eastern Surfing Association Mid-Atlantic regionals in May at the Washout in Folly Beach, S.C. It was the second year in a row Abrams won the regional competition, with the 2005 event in her home waters at Ocean City, Md.

The Surfing America USA Championships bring the best surfers of all ages from across the United States to compete for national championship titles. The nation's top-ranked competitors receive invitations to compete in this highly prestigious event from their respective regional member organizations.

The contest features about 400 of the best surfers in America from the Eastern Surfing Association, Hawaii Amateur Surfing Association, National Scholastic Surfing Association, Texas Gulf Surfing Association, Western Surfing Association and Bodyboarder International Association.

The event will also help decide who will represent the United States as part of the 2006 USA Surf Team, which will be named on July 27.

Abrams and her fellow competitors will surf at Oceanside Harbor's North Jetty. The sand bottom beach break is known to produce consistent, peaky waves. It picks up virtually every swell direction and numerous high-profile surfing competitions have been staged there in the past.

Abrams, a history major from Seaford, has been surfing since age 12, when she convinced her father, himself a competitive surfer, to give her lessons. It was the beginning of a love affair with the sport. “Something about surfing makes the experience so different from everything else,” Abrams said in an interview last year. “It is an extreme sport, and you are using the world itself in the form of the ocean. You can't control it, you can just use it to the best of your abilities.”

Another UD surfer, recent graduate Allison Kendro who competed on the Fightin' Blue Hens women's soccer team, recently competed in the National Scholastic Surfing Association national championships held in late June at Lower Trestles at San Clemente, Calif.

Article by Neil Thomas

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