10A
FRIDAY
August 3, 2018
SeasideSignal.com
Women surfers carve out space on the North Coast
‘THIS IS MY
CALLING’
HANNAH SIEVERT/THE DAILY ASTORIAN
Instructors help students balance on their boards.
By Hannah Sievert
The Daily Astorian
W
hen Lexie Hallahan started bodyboarding
in Seaside in 1989, she remembers being
one of four other women regulars in the
water. It seemed to her like nearly all the
surfers on the Oregon Coast were men.
These days, there are many women in the lineup at
local surf spots like the Cove in Seaside and Short Sand
Beach at Oswald West State Park.
While women have been an important part of surfing’s
international growth, both on the professional stage and in
popular culture, they still feel the influence of the sport’s
historically male focus.
Local surfers credit Hallahan and others for shrugging
off barriers and carving out space for women.
Hallahan put together her first all-women surf camp
more than a decade ago. That first weekend, she watched
as 16 women transformed from hesitant to confident in the
waves. She estimates she has since taught more than 700
women to surf.
“I got a full-on epiphany out in the water,” said Hallah-
an, who teaches at the Seaside-based Northwest Women’s
Surf Camps. “I was like, ‘Oh, my God, I’m supposed to be
teaching women to surf. This is my calling.’”
Surf spots can be unwelcoming for newcomers, espe-
cially for inexperienced surfers, and some women say they
feel a little extra pressure to prove themselves.
“You have to go out there and catch a wave and surf it
well, the first wave, or sometimes they’ll think you can’t
CORVALLIS — Seaside’s
junior state baseball team made
it a perfect ending to the summer
season July 22 in Corvallis.
After a tough 6-2 loss Satur-
day to West Salem — in which
the Gulls stranded 13 base run-
ners — Seaside won a closer-
than-it-should-have-been
7-6
game over the Summit Storm,
on the final day of the Division
1 state tournament at Crescent
Valley High School.
The Gulls went 2-1 in the
tournament to finish third.
In Sunday’s championship
game, Churchill rallied from an
8-5 deficit in the bottom of the
seventh to defeat West Salem, 9-8.
Summit was coming off a
7-6 semifinal loss to Churchill,
a game in which the Storm led
6-3 going into the bottom of the
seventh.
“I truly felt like West Salem
was a game we should have
surf,” said Brianna Ortega, a surfer in Seaside. “If you’re
just sitting out there, they’ll assume you can’t surf. As a
woman, not just for me but for everyone, you really have
to prove yourself.”
Aiden Herth, a surfing coach at Hallahan’s camps, grew
up surfing on Long Island, New York, where she said she
rarely saw a woman with her in the water. She has noticed
more women in the water on the West Coast, but still sees
some difficulties.
“I’ve had tons of guys cut my line off,” she said.
Ortega is doing her part to change the way women surf-
ers are portrayed in the media. The women stars of the
Seaside represented in Shrine Game
SPORTS IN BRIEF
Seaside tops Summit
for third at state
HANNAH SIEVERT
Students at Northwest Women’s Surf Camps prepare to
enter the water at Short Sand Beach.
World Surf League are recognized as elite athletes, and
advertisers have long seen the potential of marketing surf
apparel to women, but there are still stereotypes of women
in bikinis posing with surfboards on the beach instead of out
on the waves.
Ortega’s new magazine, Sea Together, aims to bring the
global community of women surfers together and present
their experiences through creative writing and interviews.
“I’m putting all of my frustrations into this, and doing
a positive thing,” she said.
She raised over $10,000 through Kickstarter for the maga-
zine’s production and received donated writing, photography
and interviews from world-class surfers like Carissa Moore
of Hawaii. Emi Koch, a surfer from California who founded a
nonprofit that uses surfing to teach ecological awareness, sent
Ortega seashells from Indonesia as a sign of appreciation.
Sea Together’s first 100-page issue will be released at a
launch party on Aug. 6 at Leeward Surf in Portland.
“We want to take the negative and turn it into something
positive,” Ortega said. “Otherwise we’re not going to move
forward or make any progress.”
The surf spots on the North Coast, where the water is
cold and rugged, can be challenging. Hallahan remembers
the days when there were no cold-water wetsuits made
for women because manufacturers thought there were not
enough women who wanted to paddle out.
When Hallahan first launched her surf camps, she hoped
to create a women’s surf community that would stick.
“I can confidently say that it’s at a point now where it
will continue to grow and there will always be women surf-
ing on the Oregon Coast,” she said.
won,” said Seaside coach Dan
McFadden. “We hit the ball hard
— just everything we hit was
right at ‘em.”
Seaside driver third
in Rose Cup event
PORTLAND — Seaside rac-
er Daniel Jesse placed third in
the Vintage category of the 58th
running of the Rose Cup Races
held last weekend at the Portland
International Raceway.
The Rose Cup Races are the
Pacific Northwest’s premier am-
ateur road racing event, which
feature racing competitors from
both the Oregon Region Sports
Car Club of America and the
Cascade Sports Car Club.
Jesse took third in the Vintage
category behind Erik Dolson, of
Sisters, and Norm Daniels, of
Vancouver, Washington.
The official winner of Sun-
day’s 58th Rose Cup race was
the team of 17-year-old Parker
Chase and veteran Ryan Dalziel.
The Daily Astorian
Three players from Clat-
sop County will be on the
field Saturday for the 66th
annual East-West Shrine
All-Star football game.
A night game this year,
the contest is set to kick off
at 7 p.m. at Bulldog Stadi-
um in Baker City, with a
pregame parade scheduled
for 11 a.m. Saturday.
The annual game show-
cases some of the state’s top
seniors from the 2017 sea-
son. Players are practicing
this week at Eastern Oregon
University in La Grande.
The West roster includes
Astoria’s Trey Hageman,
and Seaside graduates Mi-
chael Bailey and Skyler
Yoshino, who was original-
ly selected to be an alter-
nate.
Other players from the
Northwest region include
Dawson Carr of Rainier,
Ross Parsons of Scappoose
and Gunnar Partain of
Banks.
The West coaches are
Kyle Braa (Scio), Laric
Cook (Falls City), Ben
Lane (Oakland) and Steve
Stebbins (South Umpqua).
West alternates include
Logan Fischer of Warren-
ton and Vernonia’s Gaven
Everett.
The game will not be
televised live, but will be
aired on Root Sports North-
west at a later date to be an-
nounced.
West Roster
No. Name
2 - Dawson Carr, Rainier
4 - Gunnar Partain, Banks
5 - Trey Hageman, Astoria
6 - Johnathan Warner, S. Umpqua
7 - Holden Smith, St. Paul
8 - Dru Cook, Scio
10 - Brandon Piete, Regis
11 - Eli Builta, Triad
13 - Gage Hazelton, Salem Academy
14 - Taylor Gross, South Umpqua
15 - Andrew Harrington, Oakland
16 - Tristan Fergus, Dayton
22 - Parker Wynn, Monroe
From left to right, Astoria’s Trey Hageman and Seaside
graduates Skyler Yoshino and Michael Bailey.
24 - Silas Sanchas, Hosanna Chr.
32 - Jacob Payne, Camas Valley
44 - Wyatt Riedel, Estacada
47 - Devon Whitmire, Santiam
55 - Michael Bailey, Seaside
58 - Ross Parsons, Scappoose
59 - Skyler Yoshino, Seaside
60 - Kyla Paratore, Santiam Chr.
65 - Martin Sylvester, Blanchet
68 - Tyler Post, Marshfield
80 - Nic Freeman, Oakland
99 - Keith Saito, Monroe
Coaches
Kyle Braa, Scio
Steve Stebbins, South Umpqua
Ben Lane, Oakland
Laric Cook, Falls City
West alternates
Will Combee, Crook County
Colton Craigmyle, Santiam
Gaven Everett, Vernonia
Logan Fischer, Warrenton
Devin Hall, Gladstone
Jake Hamblet, North Bend
Eduardo Murillo, Lost River
Marcos Reyes, Cascade
Ben Robbins, Valley Catholic
Anthony Rondeau, South Umpqua
Noah Sickles, Falls City
Campbell Smith, St. Paul
Trent Warden, Monroe
Zach Watson, Santiam Christian
Ted Wickman, Yoncalla