The Maltese National Youth bowling teams , 4 boys and 4 girls went to Finland to take part in the European Youth under 18 Championships in which 100 boys and 68 girls representing 27 countries took part.
With no official center to train on for 3 months, this was not going to be easy but thanks to the timely support of BeActive SportMalta, a certain amount of training opportunities were made available in Gozo and in Malta at the 2 small remaining centres to allow the players an acceptable level of preparation, under coach Mark Spiteri.
The male 4 boys team, made up of Nicolai Mallia, Julian Baldacchino, Chris Fenech and Kayden Lagana’ , had a great performance and finished in 7th place out of 22 teams ahead of countries like England, The Netherlands, Germany, France and Italy, to name a few. It was during this team event that Lagana’ set not only the Maltese 6 game record but also the best 6 game series by a youth in the European Youth Championships of 1487 (247.8 average), that started off with an incredible 22 strikes in a row to bowl a perfect 300 followed up by a 289. Lagana’ with this performance finished in 4th place in the all events, and also made it to the Masters where he lost out in the opening direct clash with the Norwegian Mathias Danielsen, who went on to win the overall Masters event.
The girls team, bowling on a less difficult but still tough lane condition , made up of Mia Bugeja, Celianne Micallef, Jade Barbara and Karlise Bartolo finished in 14th place, with Mia bowling best with a strong 188 average, that combined with her scores in the singles and doubles event, meant she finished highest of the Maltese girls in 43rd place.
