11-year-old Lagana followed up on his silver medal last week in Belgium with a gold one in Ireland this weekend at the 3rd stop of the Youth European tour in Ireland. He dominated his group throughout, starting off with a strong 194 average in his qualifying set, staying well ahead in the 3 game semifinals and then winning all 3 games in the round robin to emerge a deserved winner.
Gruppetta, the only other Maltese player to take part, placed a creditable 12th place in the very tough under 24 years category, while also having the honour of shooting a perfect game (300) in the process.
This is our 5th medal in the first 3 steps of the YET this season; besides the gold and silver won by Lagana, we have a Gold by Dwayne Zahra last week and 2 bronzes by Edward Xuereb and Chris Fenech in Southampton in September.
Next stop: France with 10 Maltese players aiming to build on this successful season.