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MAKING WAVES-Agoura High Surf Club member Dylan Guardia races for the shoulder Saturday morning at Zuma Beach in Malibu. The school club, which has more than 20 members, will compete in an Interscholastic Surfing Federation contest on Saturday morning in front of Tower 7 at Zuma Beach. While many classmates caught up on sleep early Saturday morning, the Agoura High Surf Club was busy at the beach.

By 8 a.m., nearly a dozen Agoura surfers had entered the foggy coastal waters at Zuma Beach. Their purpose was to prepare for this Saturday's Interscholastic Surfing Federation (ISF) contest in front of Tower 7 on the same stretch of white Malibu sand.

"We usually run mock heats during practices, about 20 minutes each," said Richard Feinberg, one of three volunteer surf coaches at Agoura.

"That way they can get a feel for what 20 minutes in the water is like. There are offensive and defensive strategies involved, too, but we really haven't gotten to that yet."

Before this season, Agoura didn't have a surf club that participated in ISF events. The only high school in the Conejo Valley who did was Thousand Oaks.

There are four ISF sections in California-San Diego, Orange County, Channel and Santa Cruz. Agoura resides in the Channel Section, where they compete against Ventura, Malibu, T.O., Santa Barbara, Santa Monica, Pacific Palisades, Villanova Prep, San Marcos, Loyola and Dos Pueblos high schools.

AHS senior Zach Canter said he'd heard for years that someone was going to start a surf club at the school, but nothing ever materialized. Finally this year, with the help of his friend Jesse McCord, girlfriend, Charlotte Barillier, and faculty advisor Rick Way, Canter researched and contacted the ISF.

To get students to join the club, announcements were posted around the Agoura campus. Still, Canter was skeptical.

"We thought it was going to tank. We thought it wasn't going to work out," said Canter, who serves as the club's unofficial president.

"But we had our meeting and a lot of kids showed up. We were really surprised. We didn't think it was going to happen."

In joining the ISF, club members were required to fill out applications and liability forms. Each surfer was also responsible to pay a $150 entry fee for the season, which runs from October trough February.

The ISF is not associated with the California Interscholastic Federation, and as such, the clubs do not officially represent their schools during surfing contests.

According to the ISF's website, there are approximately 2,400 student surfers from 78 middle- and high-school surf teams in the state. Student members must maintain a minimum 2.0 GPA and sign the ISF's Code of Ethics to compete.

During contests there are men's and women's events in shortboarding, longboarding and bodyboarding. Competitors surf in timed heats and are scored by a panel of judges, with 1 being the lowest score and a 10 being the highest.

There were five Channel Section surf contests scheduled this season, the first of which took place in mid-October at Tarpitz in Carpinteria.

Following Saturday's contest at Zuma Beach, the ISF heads to Santa Monica, Campus Point in Santa Barbara and C Street in Ventura.

The ISF High School State Championships will take place March 1719 at Oceanside Harbor in San Diego County.

Agoura's surf members know they are the new kids on the beach, and they fully expect to go into each contest as the underdogs. But at Tarpitz last month, in its first contest, Agoura took second place in men's longboarding and sixth in bodyboarding. "We didn't really know what

to expect because we were a bunch of new guys going out there," Canter said. "But we did pretty good."

Winners Pizza in Agoura has already chipped in as a club sponsor, and Canter said future fundraisers are in the works. Steven Lippman, a former professional surfer, has assisted as a coach. Lippman's daughter, Riley, is a longboarder for Agoura.

"He's an amazing surfer and has definitely helped us out,"

Canter said of Lippman. "He helped us basically structure practice. It's been a huge help."

The club practices together at least twice per week. The ultimate goal is to improve and win contests, said AHS senior Dylan Comita, but at the same time, surfing is about enjoying the moment, too.

"We don't want to make it serious because then we might as well be playing football or water polo," Comita said. "We're out here to surf and have fun."