The Malta U-18 girls national team reached the final of the junior European Champion-ships Division C when they cantered past Gibraltar 57-22 in Andorra, yesterday.

As the scoreline clearly testifies, this was another impressive performance from Sandro Farrugia’s team who underlined their credentials for the top prize in their category when they chalked up a third successive victory in the tournament so far.

This was the second meeting between Malta and Gibraltar in less than a week.

On Tuesday, Malta won the group match 54-42 before going on to have the better of hosts Andorra 52-39 to reach the semi-finals as Group B winners.

Yesterday, Malta were off to an encouraging start and opened a commanding 17-6 lead after the opening quarter.

They continued to dominate and again outscored Gibraltar in a one-sided second session to go into the half-time interval 36-12 ahead.

Despite enjoying a cushion lead, Farrugia’s girls refused to take their foot off the pedal as the match resumed after the break.

Again they outplayed their opponents, potting 15 points against Gibraltar’s four to start the last ten minutes 51-16 in front.

With the match now settled in favour of the Maltese, the final quarter was pretty much academical as Farrugia also gave more playing time to his fringe players before the victory was sealed.

Malta face Cyprus in today’s final.

Yesterday, Cyprus beat Andorra 74-38 to book their place in the gold medal match.

Meanwhile, Malta’s U-18 boys’ team are also in Andorra for the European Division C competition.

However, contrary to their female counterparts, Gabriele Alesse’s team failed to leave their mark and lost two group matches against Monaco (57-49) and San Marino (76-69).

On Friday, the Maltese boys were also beaten by Gibraltar 66-51 in the classification matches. This morning, they play Wales in a play-off for fifth place.