Playing a perfect 300 game is every tenpin bowler’s dream – 12 straight strikes in one game for that magical maximum score. While there is a growing list of Maltese bowlers who have rolled a 300 game both in local and also international competition, these are still very rare achievements. Not so in the case of the final day of this year’s Malta Open Championships however, when not one but two local bowlers managed this ultimate bowling feat.

The first perfect game of the day went to Mark Spiteri in the opening game of the penultimate Round Robin stage. Spiteri, known around Europe as ‘Mr. Boom’ due to his high volume victory cry, lived up to his nick name as all ten pins started falling, with a crowd of local and foreign bowlers gathering to watch as the ninth frame brought his ninth strike. Then came the all important and high pressure tenth frame, and a further three strikes for the big 300 game score.

The gruelling eleven-game Round Robin continued, and in fact it was in the eleventh game that the day’s second Maltese 300 was claimed, by rising star Justin Caruana Scicluna. In spite of increasing game fatigue, as Justin had already played four games prior to the Round Robin, the youngster started consistently picking of solid strikes frame after frame. By numbers eight and nine, his sights were firmly on mirroring Spiteri’s earlier achievement, and again the encouraging crowd were there to push Justin on to make it twelve in a row. He did just that much to the pleasure of those watching, not least of all Justin’s mother, no other than Malta’s most successful bowler to date, Sue Abela, who is surprisingly yet to have her own first 300 game.