There’s a term in surfing called “tombstoning.” The phrase is as ominous as it is descriptive.
It happens when a surfer is held underwater by the force of a wave while their board sticks up vertically. So, it looks like a tombstone.
Before his sixth-grade daughter, Josie, even started paddling on her board out to the waves, Anthony Lacenere already had taken his keys, phone and wallet out of his pockets. He knew he might have run into the water at a moment’s notice.
Lacenere understood how rough the surf was going to be that day. Ten-foot waves.
But that’s why they were there in the first place. Because he knew Josie wanted the challenge at Steamer Lane near Santa Cruz, Calif.
“I knew she had the skills to do it, but I was still really nervous,” Lacenere said. “Then I saw her board tombstoning, and I was going to jump in.”
Lacenere took a step toward the water.
“Then her head popped up.”
As it had so many times before.
As she had been doing since she first sat on a surfboard at the age of 7.
Now 14, Josie Lacenere doesn’t look back at that mishap or any of the other wipeouts that she’s had as anything more than part of the sport she’s grown to love.
It’s getting hit by a pitch. It’s getting sacked by a blitzing linebacker. It’s getting rattled by a big check into the boards.
Sometimes you get your opponent. Sometimes your opponent gets you.
For Lacenere, her opponent this time just happened to be a big wave in the Pacific Ocean.
“You kind of always have everything in the back of your mind that’s going to go wrong but not really,” Josie said. “When you’re out in the water, that’s not what you think about. You’re focused on whatever you’re doing.”
That “dust yourself off and attack the next wave” attitude has helped Josie transform from a Pittsburgh kid who had seen surfing only on videos to a young woman who is racking up championships on California’s highly competitive scholastic surfing circuit.
A chance encounter
Josie’s parents, Anthony and his wife, Jess Trybus, are North Allegheny High School graduates (1995). They raised Josie and her brother, Santino, in Highland Park.
The couple lived in California after college and often dreamed of going back.
“We wanted to raise the kids on the ocean. That was the only plan,” Trybus said. “We wanted to be on the ocean, and Anthony just kept saying ‘Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz.’ ”
In August 2020, that’s where the family went. Upon arriving in California, even before they went inside their new house, the family drove to the beach to go surfing.
That’s where Josie found herself next to a waterman’s class of young kids learning the rules of the ocean and the basics of surfing. It was being taught by a man named Jack Akrop.
Josie watched from a distance and copied everything Akrop was teaching his students.
“Josie just goes in, and she’s 10 feet to the left doing everything as if she’s in the class. I told Anthony, ‘You’ve got to get that guy’s number,’ ” Trybus said. “Jack and Josie met that first day.”
The next morning, Josie joined the class and hasn’t left the water — or Akrop’s side — ever since.
“She kind of just stuck with me,” Akrop said. “She was probably my most consistent student. It’s been really cool to see her as a timid, shy 8-year-old kid who was just getting comfortable in the water. Now she just got her first big wave surfboard.”
A natural on an unconventional path
Before meeting Akrop, Josie had been on a board only a few times for one-off lessons on previous trips to California with her parents. That first time on the water was all it took.
“We were at this spot called ‘The Hook.’ This guy took me out on his board, just so I could ride on the front of it,” Josie remembers from when she was 7 years old. “I just thought it was the coolest experience to be out there catching waves.”
Akrop is the head coach and operator of “Wave Warriors by Ocean X Ascents.” Akrop started to educate Josie as a waterman and a surfer when she was 8. She was a year or two behind the curve compared to other kids who train competitively in California, but she picked up the sport quickly.
“Josie is just kind of one of those nose-to-the-grindstone kids. She earned it. She wasn’t the kid I would pick out of the hat and say, ‘That’s going to be the champion surfer.’ But she worked her way to that,” Akrop said.
“A lot of the kids that she’s competing against are descendants of great surfers. Their grandfather was a great surfer. Even if they weren’t doing it at the age of 3, they were in that culture. Their parents were taking them in the water. Having come from Pittsburgh, she didn’t grow up on the coast. I think that’s what’s unique about her.”
Josie’s ascent has been stark. In her final year at New Brighton Middle School in Santa Cruz, the Pittsburgh Environmental Charter School alum ran the table in the Santa Cruz Scholastic Surf League.
“All the schools from Monterey to San Francisco compete in that league. It’s very similar to the WPIAL,” Josie’s father said. “There are five events over the school year. She got first place in every event and then won first place for the overall. They won the team award for first place, and she won first place for the individual.”
Akrop says surfing judges in Josie’s short-boarding competitions look at three concepts: speed, style and flow.
“They’re kind of looking at speed. Speed of maneuver — being able to carve the wave and do different maneuvers from turns to carves to airs,” Akrop says. “Flow is kind of your style, how smooth you’re making it look. You can go really fast on a wave. But if you don’t have style in surfing, that doesn’t mean a lot. And then flow — how many maneuvers the surfer can put into one thing.”
Part of what makes Josie a natural fit for the sport is her powerful 5-foot-11 frame. Trybus, a former hockey player at Cornell, says her daughter’s build has aided her quick acclimation to surfing.
“As an athlete myself, I am very envious that she’s just going into high school, and she gets to have that body,” Trybus laughed.
Where that physical stature really helps Josie is in her paddling ability, a skill heightened by her crossover talents as a standout water polo player.
“No one can out-paddle her, which matters when you’re fast-paddling against insane currents that would drown people,” Trybus continued. “She’s insanely strong. That’s one of her superpowers.”
What’s to come
Pittsburgh is hardly a surfing hotbed, but Josie has never felt shunned by the Santa Cruz surfing community.
“Once I learned how to surf, I felt like I was pretty close with (the local kids), especially when I got to middle school. A lot of people were surfing. We were going to school together, and then we would go out after school, so I got pretty close with them. Especially because of safety, we all kind of look after each other.”
Josie says she wants to continue surfing competitively through high school and beyond. While college surfing scholarships are limited, water polo could provide an option.
“I really like competing,” she said. “I think if it gets to a point where you’re not having fun anymore, I don’t think you should do it.”
Josie says she’s a long way from being there.
“I think it should be fun for you. Surfing is supposed to be fun. You go out there. You can clear your head, but I really like competing,” she added.
If Josie continues on that track through Soquel High School, she could become one of the best scholastic surfers in California.
Lofty heights for a kid born in a city whose biggest waves are occasional whitecaps on the Monongahela River.