By Gary Curreri

Grace Parnas had a stellar effort at the recent United States Lifeguard Association Southern Regional event at Lake Worth.

The 14-year-old Pompano Beach resident won six of the nine events she was in and placed second in another for the Pompano Beach Junior Lifeguards in the Girls A Division. Parnas, who will be a sophomore at Calvary Christian Academy in the fall, took first in the run-swim-run, paddleboard race, beach flags, rescue race, iron guard and the swim relay. She got silver in the run relay.

“I’ve been competing for four years and been doing the camp for six years,” Parnas said. “It’s so fun. Most of the people say it is so hard, but I get to see my friends and then compete with them.”

She gets lost in the adrenaline rush. 

“You honestly don’t remember a lot of the race,” Parnas said. “You have the adrenaline rush and you are going as fast as you can because you just want to win.”

“I never expected to be at nationals or regionals,” said Parnas, who has also fared well at the national event.

She won beach flags two years ago and placed third last year in the event and is the two-time defending paddleboard national champion. 

“It is incredible,” she continued. “I never thought I would win nationals. I don’t feel any (outside) pressure. It is more self-put pressure because I want to win a national championship again.”

Teammate Julia Freshour, 13, also of Pompano, turned in a solid performance as well. She won the Girls B Division surf rescue, paddleboard, run-swim-run, rescue relay, and moved up in both the Girls A swim relay and the U19 swim relay. She was second in the iron guard.

“I really love ocean swimming so it is probably that,” said Freshour, who is a Pompano Middle School eighth-grader and has competed since she was 7. “I like to race. The competitions are really important. I would skip anything that day to come to this.”

She also loves the adrenaline rush when she competes.

“I kind of tune everything out, and I get into this zone where I kind of go into autopilot and just go,” she said. “I don’t think about anything. I don’t feel anything. I can just go all out.

It is very important to win.”

Pompano Beach’s Victoria Scarpinito took second in the U19 Girls beach flags event. She’s competed for the past five years.

“I love the team spirit and team enthusiasm. I like the challenge and how you can push yourself,” said Scarpinito, 17, who will be a senior at Cardinal Gibbons in the fall. She is also a member of the school’s dance team and on the Pro-Am competition dance team.

“It is an amazing feeling once you are out there,” she said. “It is not the most important thing to win, but it is a good feeling when you do.”

Summer Schulte took first in the U19 girls Surf race (distance swim), paddleboard and iron guard, while Oliver Nagy was the top boys finisher for the Pompano program as he won three events in the Boys A Division. He won the surf swim, paddleboard and iron guard.

Rich Tammany, who heads up the host Lake Worth Junior Lifeguard program, said the event attracted about 200 junior lifeguards from as far south as Hollywood all the way north to Flagler Beach.

Among the other cities represented were Ft. Lauderdale, Pompano Beach, Deerfield Beach, Delray Beach and host Lake Worth.

“We were very excited,” Tammany said. “I have been doing Junior Lifeguards for 23 years and this is only the second time we have had it here. The other time we had it here was 2006. The kids are excited. The weather was good…water was good. It was a great day.”

By Gary Curreri

Pompano Beach’s Shannon Snell has not only made her mark locally as a junior lifeguard – she has competed at the highest levels.

At the end of month, the 20-year-old Snell and 2016 graduate of Cardinal Gibbons High School will represent the USA Open Team in the upcoming International Surf Rescue Challenge in New Zealand from Nov. 30 — Dec. 4.

Snell has been an Ocean lifeguard since 2016 on both the east and west coast of the United States, and prior to that was a Pompano Beach Junior lifeguard since the age of 9. During that time, she was selected to represent the United States Youth National Team in France in 2014. She also travelled to Japan and Australia the following two years.

Based on her performance at the United States Lifeguarding Association Nationals in Daytona Beach this summer, Snell earned her fourth invitation to represent her country.

“When I was younger, I just did junior lifeguarding for fun, I didn’t think it would turn into a professional level,” said Snell, who is lifeguard for both the city of Ft Lauderdale Ocean Rescue and Miami Beach Ocean Rescue. “Back then it was a killer workout for the summer and now it is more mental, physical, more intense and more professional.”

“I am super honored with all of the opportunities it has opened up for me in the sport. I have gotten to travel the world and meet people that I am still friends with today. It is just something that I never experienced and never thought would be such a big part of my life.”

Snell, currently ranked seventh in the Nation for Open Women, is self-trained and does distance running, swimming, weight training, yoga, stretching and concentrates on her nutrition to be a top flight athlete.

She also works 10 hours a day as a first responder, Ocean Rescue. At the nationals in the summer, she competed in 10 events and had 40-plus races during a three-day span that featured more than 1,000 lifeguards. She was fifth in Beach Flags and earned her overall ranking based on individual points through prelims, semifinals and finals.

Competitions involve everything from sprinting out of the water in the sand to paddling in overhead surf pounding your body; to simulated surf rescue races involving more than one person to surfsking a ski threw heavy surf.

Pool events also take place at the World Championship every two years, apart from swimming and rescuing an unconscious person (simulated as a mannequin) you have to pull to safety.

“Looking back, I never pictured myself being where I am today,” Snell said. “With the help of my parents making sure I did the right things as far as training, I am very proud to be where I am and I couldn’t have done it without them helping me get through all of the tough obstacles.”

Snell said there are lifeguards who still compete at the age of 50. She sees herself doing this a couple of more years and then enlisting in the Coast Guard.

“It has become a very mental and physical challenge because now you know what is important and the sacrifices you have to make in order to compete at this level,” Snell said. “I just want to race my heart out and make some memorable friends and meet up with some old friends who are going from other countries. I just want to have a really good time because New Zealand is someplace that I have not been, so I want to explore and see how their culture is.”

Snell has set up a GoFundMe page to help defray the cost of the trip since the United States Lifeguard Association covers nothing. For more information, go to www.gofundme.com/shannonsnell.

Ranse Classic this weekend

The Ranse Volleyball Classic Pro Am 2-man volleyball tournament is headed to Deerfield Beach this weekend (Nov. 4-5).

Last year’s tournament raised nearly $40,000 and the event is a blind draw grab bag event, with King of the Beach style of “pool play.” You will sign up as an individual, and then players are “picked” during the Friday night player’s party to determine what court they will be playing on to determine their division level (Open/AAA – OR – AA/A).

The cost is $53 for adults and $31.80 for juniors, and the registration is open until 6 p.m. Nov. 2. For more information, visit www.facebook.com/RanseVolleyballClassic or www.facebook.com/DigtheBeach.

By Gary Curreri

Pompano Beach’s Gwen Bencie enjoys learning about the ocean.

The 10-year-old also enjoys competing and putting the two together while participating in the inaugural Florida State Junior Lifeguard Championships in Lauderdale recently.

“It’s mostly hard,” said Bencie, who competed for the Ft. Lauderdale Junior Lifeguard program the past two years. She won the Girls C Division Paddleboard event at the state competition.

“It teaches you how to save lives and rescue people. What you would really do if you were a lifeguard. I want to be a lifeguard when I am older. I think the competition is really important because I want to win and we can get points for the team.”

Bencie said her favorite event was the paddleboard, although she competed in all of the events.

“It’s fun,” Bencie added. “Sometimes, I go surfing and I like working out.”

Ft. Lauderdale scored 1,052 points to take the state title, while Pompano Beach was second with 668. Deerfield Beach was fourth with 289 points.

Mike Brown, 37, who has headed up the Deerfield Beach Junior Lifeguard program for the past 14 years, had 14 of his 70 junior guards competing in the event. Brown said two of his current city lifeguards came from the junior program.

“The benefits are you are teaching them water safety and teaching them how to save someone’s life,” Brown said. “You teach them how to identify dangerous water conditions and also how to use surf crafts like a paddleboard and how to catch waves.”

Deerfield Junior Lifeguard James Rivera, 14, a Boca High 9th grader, has been competing for five years and said it is fun.

“Sometimes winning is important,” said Rivera, who also swims for the Deerfield Beach Dolphins Swim Team. “It is pretty serious, but it is also fun, too, at the same time. It is a good experience.”