The first-ever portable, cement skate bowl came back to the sands of Ocean City, MD for the fourth consecutive Dew Tour Beach Championships, but this year was unlike any other. First off, the bowl was completely redesigned using the same pieces rearranged in a way that made for new hips, more walls in the deep end and allowed for the addition of a clam shell feature on the shallow end.

Moreover, the reigning undefeated beach bowl champion, Pedro Barros, ran into some serious travel hiccups and was unable to make his return to defend his title. With Barros out of the picture Maryland native Bucky Lasek became the favorite but with new faces such as Greyson Fletcher skating strong in the semifinal it was anything but a given.

After Friday’s semifinal, the top twenty skaters were cut in half, leaving ten to battle for the bowl title today. The top three qualifiers went in order of Alex Sorgente, Fletcher and Lasek.

Each skater received four runs, with the top two counting toward their overall score. From here, the ten became five and the superfinal was set with Sorgente, Lasek, Kevin Kowalski, Tom Schaar and Cory Juneau making his first-ever Dew Tour appearance.

Moment of Stress:

Throughout the event there was constant back-and-forth battle between riders as they searched to make their two best runs in order to earn the highest average score to get the win. As the final runs of the superfinal approached the crowd thought they had seen it all, but there was still more to come.

For most of the athletes it was during a practice session where they figured out how to step their runs up and up their scores, but for Lasek it was the night before as he laid restless, falling in and out of sleep, searching for that perfect combination to earn him the win.

Lasek went on to explain; “I guess that is the advantage of being a veteran. I don’t actually have to be on my board to progress, I can do it in my mind.”

Lasek not only dreamt up a more progressive run for himself, but he dreamt up the winning run he had been searching for in the Ocean City bowl for the last few years. He earned it.

Top Tricks:

Tom Schaar – huge alley-oop 360 from the shallow end into the deep, giant 540 stalefish, and an alley-oop 360 stalefish. Cory Juneau – fronstide boardslide in the deep end, front invert, frontside nose grind and 540 in the deep end. Kevin Kowlaski – boneless into the clam shell to start his run, frontside invert in the clam shell, deck ride on top of the clam shell then roll back in, sweeper on the clam shell, andrecht, and a finger flip tail stall.

Alex Sorgente – huge backside air, rocket air, saran wrap over the hip and a huge one-foot from the shallow into the deep end.

Winner’s Top Tricks:

Buck Lasek – stalefish into the clam shell, McTwist in the deep end, frontside rodeo 540, gay twist, heelflip indy and a backside tailslide on the hip from the shallow to deep end.

Winner’s Quote:

“It feels awesome! After a disappointing vert attempt, to come into the bowl and salvage some energy and to put it all into the final… It takes a lot of energy and I’ve been a busy guy lately. I’m very grateful to get this win. It feels good!” — Bucky Lasek