Kevin, Tim shreds way to top 2nd Skate Series

Skater Kevin Codog, last year’s third place, redeemed himself as he shredded his way to first place in the expert competition of the Marianas Surf Skate League’s 2nd Annual Marianas Skate Series last Saturday.

Tim Deleon Guerrero, or “Sois,” also etched his name in the series as the champion of the new Game of S-K-A-T-E at the skatepark between the Gold’s Gym and the Garapan Central Park.

In the expert competition, Codog took first place with a total of 804 points from his first run of 261 points, and 272 points plus 271 points for landing his best tricks.

Second place was Aaron Lavapie with 679 points—231 from his first run, then 225 points and 223 points in the best trick portion.

Third was last year’s champion Sean Gil with 518 points. He collected 262 points in his first run and landed just one trick for 256 points.

As for the Game of S-K-A-T-E, which is like H-O-R-S-E in basketball, Deleon Guerrero beat out Gil in the finals. In the semis, Deleon Guerrero beat out Alfred Guevarra, while Gil defeated Kurt Arborilas.

In the 540 challenge, Arthur Charfauros won as he was the first one to land a 540 variation.

For Codog, whose best trick he landed was the nose-slide shove-it, said after the awards ceremony that it felt great to win first place. “I didn’t expect it but I did my best,” he said.

As for the competition this year, he thought Gil would win it all again, but that Gil missed a few tricks and that gave Codog the advantage as he landed most of his.

Codog, who was also a finalist in the Game of S-K-A-T-E, said that they should hold the event more often. “It’s good for the kids to avoid drugs and stuff like that—just skate,” he said.

He then thanked MSSL, “Sois,” and the sponsors of the event.

Deleon Guerrero, who is also a chairperson of MSSL, donated the money back to the event to give the skaters another chance to win in another competition after the awards ceremony.

The 36-year-old Deleon Guerrero said for his part, “It’s been about 3-4 years since I’ve skated the way I skated today.”

The competition, he said, took a lot of energy out of him. “It took me about three rounds to kind of warm up and land better tricks. It was hard.” He added, “I saved a lot of the harder tricks for the final round. I did all the cheap and easy tricks in the beginning round and in the last rounds I tried to do more technical tricks in the end.”

In the finals against Gil, he said, “It was pretty intense. He was landing good tricks as well and he was also trying to attempt harder tricks to get me out. We were both at the letter T, so it was intense.”

With the addition of S-K-A-T-E in this year’s competition, he said that it’s great. “It’s one of the foundations as a skater. Flat ground tricks are the beginning of what everyone learns before they transition to learn how to ride an actual park, so it basically sets the tone of where the trick capability of the skater and the skate community is.”

As for the turnout of about 12 skaters, he said that the competition was “super dope” and that the turnout was good and more than last year’s. “We saw a lot of new and young skaters that also took part in the clinic. Hopefully we can keep developing the community and have more opportunities to skate and other recreational activities since we have the skate park,” he said.

The level of competition this time around “is definitely in a good position. Everyone’s able to do different variations and everyone has their own style as well. It’s a good community. Everyone’s friends with everybody so I think it’s great.”

Sponsors of the event are Marpac, Pokka, Saipan Surf Company, Salty Skin Pacific, Local Bones, Caravan of Food, Mariana Arts, and Department of Lands and Natural Resources-Parks and Recreation.