Fina beat Aercomms to snatch lead

Week nine marked the end of round one in the Middlesea League at the Eden SuperBowl. The latest round saw another full-point victory for Globalair Travel over Royal Shock to put them right up in third place.

The highlight of last week's programme was the first clash of the season between erstwhile leaders Aercomms and defending champions Fina First. The latter emerged 6-2 winners to go top of the table. In other matches, there were 6-2 wins for HSBC against PharmaVet and Turu's Knights over Ramis.

Inlusion took all eight against bottom side The Clan, who already look resigned to relegation even though the season is only at its half-way point.

It was only three weeks ago that Globalair were down in the relegation zone after a shaky start to the season. But, their determined form of late has yielded three wins, including last week's 8-0 hammering of Royal Shock.

They are now 10 points down on second and 12 behind the top team. Globalair began the clash with a 797-767 win in game one and carried on with sound playing consistency to clinch game two 776-734, and then seal the full-point result with a final 757-688 win in the last of the set.

Fina-Aercomms was every bit the thriller it was expected to be, starting with a narrow 796-811 opening win for Fina. That was followed by a strong Aercomms fightback in game two, which they won 849-785 to make it two-all and take a modest advantage of 49 pins heading into the deciding third game.

Fina pulled off the victory with an excellent 713-982 match winner, their massive game including individual efforts of 279 from young Justin Caruana Scicluna, a 258 from Sue Abela, a 235 from Brian Farrugia, while Mark Spiteri could hardly be classed as 'low' with his 209 game.

Bowlers of the week: Kenneth Arpa (Aercomms, 650); Sue Abela (Fina First, 703).

Standings: Fina First 52, Aercomms 50, Globalair Travel 40, PharmaVet 38, Ramis 38, Inlusion 38, Royal Shock 36, HSBC 34, Turu's Knights 28, The Clan 6.