Driving home from Dana Point, Titus Santucci was stoked that he had just led the San Dieguito Academy surf team to an unfathomable, come-from-behind national championship.
Then came the phone call.
“Get back here now, bro!” the voice on the other line said. “We need you for the surf-off.”
There is the walk-off homer in baseball, the Hail Mary touchdown in football and the buzzer-beater in basketball.
What the Mustangs pulled off last Sunday was, well, a miracle on waves.
Led by Santucci and teammate Dane Libby, San Dieguito defeated 16-time national champion San Clemente High School to win the National Scholastic Surfing Association national title with a paddle-away, strategic-wave knockout before 1,000 or so screaming fans at Salt Creek Beach.
“It was super nerve-wracking going in,” Libby said. “But once we got going, it was so much fun.”
Santucci described the finish as hectic and surreal.
“I could actually hear the screaming coming from the beach,” he said. “It was amazing and made it even more exciting.”
Santucci and Libby secured the crown by beating San Clemente’s Bryce Celaya and Ben Brantell by a combined score of 29.86-18.31 in an unprecedented 20-minute overtime heat. Santucci, who graduated earlier this month, finished first with 15.66 points; Libby, a sophomore, was second at 14.20.
San Dieguito freshman Victoria Duprat helped the cause by finishing second in the girls’ division.
“It was insane,” Duprat said. “So much fun to watch. I really wished it was a girl- and-guy final because I was interested in surfing again. But it was great.”
Duprat’s father, Vincent, is one of San Dieguito’s coaches. He called the competition “a roller-coaster weekend.” San Dieguito Academy trailed both San Clemente and Florida’s Flagler Palm Coast at different times during the 14-team championship event.
“We had a great Sunday with surfers in all of the finals. We thought we had won,” he said. “That being said, having a surf-off in the end was icing on the cake.”
Hall of Famer Janice Aragon has been the NSSA executive director since 1989. She called it “a fantastic finish. What a comeback for San Dieguito.”
Back to the beach
Santucci figured his team had won.
It’s why an exhausted and beat-up Santucci had already left the beach before the judges tallied the results of the team competition involving four boys and two girls on shortboards, plus a longboarder, competing in several heats over three days.
The score: 75-75.
In March, SDA and San Clemente tied for the NSSA state championship, 71-71. Both were awarded title trophies.
The NSSA would have no co-champs for the nationals. Officials called for a surf-off.
San Clemente wanted it to begin right away. San Dieguito coach Marco Martinez asked for more time so Santucci could return, find parking (no easy task) and change into his wetsuit (tricky in a public parking lot).
The extra time was granted, but shortly afterward, no one could find Santucci or Libby.
They were on a beachside bluff, devising a winning strategy.
A total team win
Santucci and Libby came up with a plan: They would turn an individual sport into 20 minutes of do-or-die, team-oriented trying.
San Clemente’s Celaya won the individual national championship mostly by catching waves on the north peak at Salt Creek.
Santucci and Libby decided to juke their rivals. They would pretend to paddle north and then U-turn to catch whatever waves they could on the south break.
“We kind of rolled the dice and went for it,” Santucci said. “It was a longshot, but it worked out great.”
Libby scored the first big ride, followed by a pair of scorchers for Santucci and another for Libby.
“After we comboed, then it was time to play defense and sit on them to make sure we would win the points,” Santucci said. “It worked out really well.”
Since its inception in 1978, the NSSA had never determined a national high school champion by using the overtime rules. Cal State San Marcos is the only college national champion to win the title in a surf-off, beating North Carolina-Wilmington in 2009.
This was San Dieguito’s third national title, but their first since 2007. The Mustangs claimed their first crown in 1992 with a young hotshot named Rob Machado.
Qualifying standards for NSSA events is fairly stringent – the first “s” is scholastic.
San Dieguito won with Santucci (4.3 GPA), Libby (3.8), junior Tommy Granger (3.8) and sophomore John John Chan (4.0) on boys shortboards. Senior Marley Lovell and Duprat (4.0) competed in girls shortboard, and junior Grayson Messier (3.8) rode the longboard.
“They had such a strong team,” Aragon said. “Strong surfers with competition savvy in all of the disciplines.”
Santucci won the NSSA state championship in March. He and Libby are both competitors in USA Prime surfing; so are Lovell and Duprat. USA Prime selects surfers to compete in international events. In December, Santucci won a silver medal in the ISA Junior World Championships in Brazil.
“Qualifying for the U.S. team had been a goal of mine for a long time,” Santucci said. “Sometimes, you get locked in your bubble and you know all the California kids. Then you get to Rio and see the best young surfers in the world. That was such a great experience.”
News of San Dieguito’s national championship traveled fast among North County locals.
“A win for us is like a win for the community,” Navarro said. “There are so many great surfers from San Dieguito, so they were super stoked to break the curse.”
Not a minute later, on a picture-perfect summer solstice sunset evening, a surfer strolled by to pay his respects to Santucci and Libby.
“Way to go, champs!” he said. “We’ve been waiting a long time for this.”
