Sara Xuereb showing her trophies in London.Sara Xuereb showing her trophies in London.

Hot on the heels of their success in the Junior British Open in Norwich, a group of Maltese youth and junior bowlers moved on to London, where they participated in the 2015 edition of the JTE Junior London International, held at the Airport Bowl in Heathrow.

Hopes were high among the group of repeating their previous week’s success.

In fact the week’s competition culminated in a real dream come true for 13-year-old Sara Xuereb who was crowned the London International champion after a thrilling final stage.

In all, no fewer that 17 Maltese U-21 bowlers took part in the championships and had rather mixed fortunes.

The best performance among the boys came from 13-year-old Matthew Magro.

He qualified on his best entry of 1,449 pins over eight games to go through to the final stages, having registered a pair of 216s and also a 236 during his qualifying set.

Magro then went through in sixth place from final stage 1 with a good 752 four-game total, before eventually being knocked out in stage three, where he was beaten 379-405 over two games by Shinya Haest, of Belgium.

Xuereb made it through the qualifying round on an excellent 1,527 for eight games, for a 190.8 game average and including highs of 213, 225 and 236.

Xuereb never faltered through final stages 1 through 4, with four consecutive victories from her two-game matches.

Then in final stage 5, she ended up on the losing side against England’s Keira Ray (399-420), but still made it through to the Stepladder Finals having been unbeaten in all previous head-to-head matches.

Xuereb won her first match against England’s Lewis Johnson by just four pins (418-414), meaning that she was through to the Grand Final, and would again face Ray.

As the English had already beaten Xuereb in their earlier encounter, the Maltese bowler had to beat the higher seed twice to claim the tournament title.

Xuereb got off to a great start with a 454 total (216- 238) against 373 (201-172) from Ray, to force that all important second match.

Tension was high and the pressure was on for both finalists, and in the end it was to be Xuereb’s day, as she won through by just ten pins, 440-430.

The Maltese contingent in the UK included Rick Vogelesang, coach of Xuereb and Magro, and Liliana Spiteri, the Malta Tenpin Bowling youth and junior mentor.

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