As we mentioned yesterday, a couple of Round Two heats on Thursday were so ridiculously stacked with A-listers that it's hard to believe this is only a Prime-rated event. Generally when such claims as 'superheat' are made the reality never lives up to the hype. Today was different.

There was no shortage of drama this morning, both 'superheats' came down to the wire. The waves were mediocre peaks again today, but plenty of rideable waves to be had.

Heat 6 saw Tanner Gudauskas, Alejo Muniz, Josh Kerr and Kelly Slater face off at 8am this morning. Tanner jumped out of the gates early with a 9 and a 7.33 within the first 13 minutes and never looked back. The battle for second would see Kerr and Slater trade places several times. As the heat expired it was Kerr needing a 6.48 behind Kelly. Josh caught a tiny wedge and threw a perfect pop-shuvit and headed to the inside, looking good to get the score if he could make the connection. The wave did not cooperate and fizzled out, leaving Kerrzy to wonder what if..

In heat 8, which was Dane, Julian, Kolohe, and Aritz Aranbaru, Kolohe got the early jump, nailing an 8.17 for an inverted backside air-reverse, and quickly backed it up with a 5.67 for a frontside blow-tail on the outside, and looked like he would easily take the heat.

Then Dane Reynolds woke up about midway through the heat. He caught an average left wedge and proceeded to pull a huge backside full rotation air-reverse for a 9.33, the highest wave score of the day. He then backed that up with an 8.1 o get the highest heat total of the day, and a dominant victory.

Meanwhile the other three surfers were slowly building scores, all three needing mid range scores to advance behind Dane. Aritz caught (and claimed) a decent left where he did a sliding reverse on the outside and connected the remaining dots into the shorebreak. The judges gave him a 7.57, putting him .06 above Kolohe. With under ten seconds left, Andino found a hail mary wedge and was able to crush it to the beach for a 7.5 and the last second win. The kid showed no signs of the nerves you'd expect for such a young fellow surfing against his heroes.

The matchups for Round Three are shaping up to be just as intriguing. Check it out live here.

Photo: Kolohe Andino arriving for his heat against Dane Reynolds, Julian Wilson and Aritz Aranburu.