National Championships underway at Eden SuperBowl

The 16 qualifying round games from the 2005 MTBA National Championships were completed recently at the Eden SuperBowl.

For the second year running, competition is being held over two different lane conditions (short-oil and long-oil) in preparation for September's European Championships in Boblingen, Germany.

The eventual winners of the 2005 National Championships will represent Malta.

In the male section, Kenneth Arpa ruled on the short condition on Day One, shooting consistently well over 200 over the four games for a brilliant 917 set. That gave him an early lead over Brian Farrugia, 864, and Matthew Caruana, 827.

Caruana then went on to dominate on the long pattern, which other contenders seemed to struggle with, blasting his way to an 872 foursome, giving him an overall total for the day of 1,699 which put him in the lead.

Arpa kept himself in touch with 1,642 in second place. Farrugia ended the day third, 1,607.

Day Two saw a reversal of the lane programmes, the long pattern being put down for the first four games, followed by the short. Here, Arpa pulled off a much better performance, stringing together a 791 to take him back to the top with 2,433 pins.

Farrugia was best over this set which saw him go second (2,401) only just ahead of Caruana (2,399).

Back to the short-oil condition where Arpa's 760 total (3,193 round total, 199.5 ave) was enough to keep him in the top spot going through to the final stages. Caruana finished the round in second place, 3,161, ahead of Farrugia 3,150.

Also qualifying for the finals were Ray Falzon Reale, Dennis Mercieca and Rankin Camilleri.

Abela sitting pretty

Sue Abela tops the ladies' section, having fared rather better on the long-oil pattern than her challengers. The first four games on short-oil saw a three-way race between Abela and 2003 champion Doris Camilleri, both on 826 pins.

Last year's winner Melissa Anastasi had 823.

Abela, then took top spot narrowly after her four games on long-oil, rolling a 730 ahead of a 728 from Anastasi, and a 701 from Camilleri.

Once Abela is on top, it's difficult to shake her off, and she built up her lead on Day Two with a 758 set on the long pattern (2,314 after 12 games). Anastasi stayed in second place, 2,253. Camilleri hung onto third (2,206).

That's the way things stayed after the final four games of the round, as Abela continued to improve on her lead, giving her a round winning total of 3,105 pins (194 ave). Anastasi stayed second on 3,026 while Camilleri's 744 kept her in third on 2,950. Also through were Vicki Camilleri and Lorraine Casha.

The final stage will take the format of a double round robin. The pinfall accumulated in round one will all be carried forward, and each finalist will play the other qualifiers in turn, over two rounds.