Dutch girls come from behind to win the Trios title at 20th European Youth Championships

Starting the day in fourth position, 141 pins off the pace for the gold medal in the Girls Trios event, Carmen Haandrikman, Kelly Plummen and Lisanne Breeschoten (l-r with coach Farida Pascoal-Blom in the front) from the Netherlands fired games of 617, 694 and 687, for an 1998 three-game total, a new EYC record for three games, to rocket to the top of the leaderboard and to win the gold medal with 3794 pinfall total and an average of 210.78.

The youngster, 16-year old Breeschoten posted games of 190, 268 and 247 for the highest individual series of all 103 players on the second day of the Trios event with 705.

Haandrikman and Plummen, both 17, had 647 and 646, resp. Plummen, daughter of Dutch national coach Ton Plummen, shot the highest six-game series over both days with 1329 to help propel her to fourth place in All Events, mere five pins off the medals.

Day one leader Israel with Mor Aviram, Mor Dayan and Liat Vizenfeld, who competed in the first squad this morning, earned the silver medal with 3757, 37 pins behind the Dutch. Mor Aviram led the team with a 1281 series. The younger sister of European Champions Cup winner Or Aviram moved to seventh place in All Events.

Germany with Tina Hulsch, Janin Ribguth and Melanie Birlinger was going for gold after five games. Behind games of 604 and 645, the Germans were 31 pins ahead of the eventual winners and needed 620 in the final game to overtake Israel.

All eyes were on Janin Ribguth (right), who shot a record 1443 six-game series in Doubles.

Who knows if it was too much pressure or just a bad game in the wrong moment, but after games of 226, 234, 231, 192 and 245, she closed out the set with 154. Her team mates Birlinger (202) and Hulsch (191) secured bronze medal with 3685 pinfall total and an average of 204.72.

Despite her low game at the end, Ribguth led the team with 1282 and even widened her lead in All Events. The German has felled 2725 over twelve games, an average of 227,08. Hulsch is third and 2006 EYC Masters runner-up Birlinger is 17th.

The English trio Sarah Overall, Katrina Maciver and Hayley White (l-r with coach Andy Penny) started the day in third place, trailing leader Israel and second-placed Germany by eleven and 59 pins, resp. After 537 in game #4 and 582 in game #5 the Doubles gold medalists White and Overall and their team mate Maciver were 141 pins behind Germany.

They finished strong with 640 but fell 48 pins short of the bronze medal to settle for fourth place with 3637 (202.06). White (right) totaled 1279 pins to maintain the second place in All Events.

With the final six games in the team event to go, she is trailing Ribguth by 135 pins.

A total of 31 teams participated in the Girls Trios event at Strike Bowling Club in Thessaloniki, Greece.

Only the top four trios managed a team average of 200 and more. Fifth place belonged to Norway with 3558, followed by Latvia (3503) and Belgium (3497). Belgium's Carolin Witvrouwen (left) rolled a 278 game today, the highest game in the girls division of the championship thus far. Picture courtesy of Arny Goossens.

In 8th and 9th place were the two trios from Sweden at 3474 and 3432. Rounding out the top 10 was Russia with 3428, a 190.44 average.

The girls are done for today and will return on Thursday and Friday for three-game blocks of the team events at 8am local time (GM plus 2) each.


Girls Trios Results

Girls All Events