Sue Abela, Paul Gray confirmed as BOV national senior champions

The BOV National Seniors Championship, for players 50 years and up, was held recently at the Eden Superbowl, and saw Sue Abela and Paul Gray retain the titles they won last year.

As expected, Abela dominated the ladies’ group, never being in any danger of losing her grip on this title.

In fact, she finished over 500 pins ahead of second place Liliana Spiteri.

After a poor start, Marthese Cossai clawed some pins back on Spiteri, but did not manage to recover the gap and had to settle for third place, just under 100 pins behind Spiteri.

The men’s section was as expected, hotly contested. 

Day 1 saw Kenneth Arpa take the lead with a 193-average including the age-related bonus pins, ahead of Joe Cassar, Gray and Mark Spiteri.

The second day saw Gray climb up to first, ahead of Spiteri, Cassar and Dennis Mercieca, with Arpa having a poor second set of six games and falling to fifth place.

The last day, with the final six games being played, saw Gray, Spiteri and Arpa battling it out, with all to play for in the last three games as Spiteri shot the highest game of the tournament (279 scratch) to take the lead with three games left.  

Gray was unfazed, and hammered in a last three-game set of 685 (228 scratch average) against a 564 by Spiteri and a 665 by Arpa to end up defending his title by 83 pins, including his higher age-related bonus over Spiteri.  

Arpa just missed out on second place, eight pins behind Spiteri, while still playing the highest overall scratch average of 198 pins.