The final day of the National Scholastic Surfing Championships kicked off this morning with Bay of Plenty claiming a win over the host team, Taranaki, for the first time.

Bay of Plenty left yesterday's heat with nine out of 12 surfers remaining in the competition with competition hosts Taranaki wiped out of their leading position.

Photo by: Col/Surf2Surf.

A total of six Bay of Plenty surfers progressed through to the final rounds led by Mount Maunganui surfer Jordan Griffin who scored 15.0 moving through to the semi-final under-16 boy's division.

Jordan was joined by three under-16 boy's division surfers from the Bay of Plenty who also advanced through to the semi-finals.

Contest director Ben Jennings says although the Bay of Plenty team has taken a while to get to the top spot, the surfers deserve to win a Scholastic this year.

He says Bay of Plenty have shown huge improvement scoring more heat points than competing regions each day.

'They have also showed how strong the region is.”

Ben says the few Mount Maunganui surfers who have shown the most improvement throughout the five-day competition may be eligible for a spot in the New Zealand Junior team announced next week.

'Hopefully there will be a few happy faces next week.”

Team point results show that Bay of Plenty scored more than 1000 points to win a spot over the Taranaki team.

Taranaki made top of the table for the first three days of the competition and the loss against Bay of Plenty yesterday will mean the team will need good results from all competing surfers today.