Malta beat Scotland in third place play-off

Malta 72
Scotland 52
(14-10, 14-14, 25-12, 19-16)

The Maltese women’s national team at the Euro Championship for Small States in Macedonia finished on a positive note yesterday as they made it a double over Scotland to secure the third place on the podium.

Malta had won all their three matches in the round-robin phase, one of the victories coming at the expense of Scotland (80-57) to finish top of Group A with three wins.

But Santino Coppa’s players were unable to repeat the feat of 2008 and 2010 when they won the tournament in convincing fashion after an upset against Austria in the semi-finals on Saturday (61-53).

In the play-off for third place, however, the Maltese team re-grouped to hand Scotland a second drubbing in the space of a few days and underline their potential at this level of the European game.

Steffi de Martino was Malta’s top scorer with 20 points.

The match was close until the interval but the third quarter belonged to the Maltese who extended a four-point lead to 17 and never looked back, going on to win the last 10-minute quarter 19-16 to make sure of victory.

Other results
Final: Austria-Macedonia 68-63.
5-6th place: Gibraltar-Wales 65-61.
7-8th place: Azerbaijan-Moldova 68-45.