The third day of competition at the 2019 Hood Jam presented by Wind Voyager Authentic Apparel started a bit slow. After a 9am skippers meeting the women’s semi-final hit the water but unfortunately the wind didn’t cooperate and the competition went on hold. Luckily at noon the wind angle changed and the wind filled into the entire park. The women went back on the water and kicked off feature 2, the Slingshot Kicker on starboard tack.
Lauren Holman kept pace with well scoring kicker hits but couldn’t recover from a botched hit on feature 1 yesterday, ending in 3rd place, just out of reach of the final. Issy Von Zastrow’s solid performance finished off with the highest score on feature 4, giving her 2nd place and a spot in the final! Sensi Graves was still on fire after taking an early lead on feature 1 and went on to win the heat. She kept the pressure on by dropping the highest scores on both kickers with a big heelside melan frontside 540 going starboard and a heelside frontside 360 on port.
In the men’s semi everyone was scoring high and the top 3 kept rotating during the heat. By feature 4, 7 of the 9 riders were within striking distance of the advancement spots. Eric Rienstra was holding down 3rd place only 0.15 ahead of Ramiro Gallart and after both hit essentially the same level tricks, Rami’s execution just barely gave him an edge and he was able to come back and tie Eric for 3rd, sending them both to what would now be a 10 man final! Lucas Arsenault put on a stellar heat with consistent hits and was able to hold onto 2nd place, sending him to his first ever KPL Final! Winning the heat was Alex Maes with the best scoring hits on features 3 and 4.
The wind for tomorrow looks light but there might be chance for an evening breeze to get the finals kicked off.
