The Eastern Surfing Association (ESA) held its Northeast Regionals, which was its third and final regional championship, this weekend in Ocean City, Maryland. Competitors traveled from as far as Maine to compete in hopes of claiming the top spots to receive in invitation for ESA’s 2025 Easterns Surfing Championship. The Easterns is held annually in September at Jennette’s Pier in Nags Head, North Carolina.
Ocean City, Maryland welcomed the surfers to 18th street with waves that had been missing for most of the winter. Competitors arrived on Thursday just as the water temps reached comfortable levels to forgo boots and gloves. This warmup session offered plenty of opportunity for everyone to figure out the tricky sandbars.
Friday provided epic conditions with ESA All-Stars taking over the top spots.
ESA All-Star and Central New Jersey’s Gavin Mitchell claimed first in both Open Mens Shortboard and Boys 14-15. Mitchell also won the Hot Wave Award with the highest single wave score of the event.
Maine’s Ayla Stutzman won the Open Womens Shortboard and Jr Womens, while Central Jersey’s Keira Soleau took the top spot in Girls 12-13. Both Stutzman and Soleau are ESA All-Stars.
OCMD locals placed first in multiple divisions: ESA All-Stars Reef Henson – Boys 12-13, Carolina Labin – Girls 14-15 and Kai Sommers – Mens Shortboard. Kate Delligatti won Girls 11 & Under, and Brian Gloyd took home first place in both Legends short- and longboard divisions.
Central New Jersey’s James Carr and Dylan Koznin won big in the longboard divisions. Carr won both the Jr Mens and Open Mens longboard divisions and Koznin won the Jr Womens Longboard.
Southern New Jersey’s Gemma Kohles and Carter Dooley won the Open Womens and Menehune Longboard, respectively.
Delmarva Aerial streamed the entire event on SurfESA’s youTube channel that included amazing drone footage and computer scoring by LiveHeats. Full final results may be found here https://liveheats.com/events/341499
Next stop is The Easterns September 14-20, 2025 at Jennette’s Pier, but in the meantime, check out your local district events that will be happening throughout the summer months.