Youri Fens (pictured left), a local youth bowler of bowling club "Bowling Vereniging Tilburg", dominated the fifth qualifying squad Wednesday evening en route to shoot into second place in the Hammer Bronzen Schietspoel Tournament at Dolfijn Bowling Tilburg in Tilburg, Netherlands.

Fens started his six-game block with 228, three 240s (245, 248 and 247) and 214 before he closed out with a huge 278 game for 1460 or an average of 243.33.

Fens is now sandwiched between Jean-Marc Lebon (above right) of Belgium, who leads the field of 102 players from six countries with 1483 (247.17 average), and his compatriot Marawan Aernoudt, who slipped to third place with 1434 including the tournaments lone 300 game so far.

Rounding out the top 5 are Dutch Johnny Spil and Lisanne Breeschooten (left), who is the best of 17 women in the field, both with 1393. All ties will be broken by the higher last game.

Fens out averaged his nearest competitor in Squad 5, Dutch women's national team member Nicole Sanders (right, 1306), by more than 33 pins. Sanders sits in 26th place with her high series of 1308.

The only other player from Squad 5 who moved into the top 36 was Aurelien Truchot of France behind a 1289 series, good for 35th place. Marcel Sass of Germany slipped to the 36th and last place to advance to the finals with 1287 or an average of 214.50.

Qualifying continues Thursday, February 27, with Squads 6-8 scheduled to start at noon, 4 and 8 p.m. CET.

The Hammer Bronzen Schietspoel Tournament 2014 is the third stop of the 2014 European Bowling Tour and the first of four EBT "Silver" tournaments, the third-highest of four EBT categories. The tournament will be held from Sunday, Feb. 23, through Sunday, March 2, at 20-lane Dolfijn Bowling in Tilburg, Netherlands.

Players will compete for total prize money of 44.400 Euro with 6.000 Euro going to the winner, 4.000 to the runner-up and 3.000 and 2.000 to third and fourth place finishers, respectively. Low to cash is 46th place (400 Euro).

Qualifying runs through Saturday, March 1 with the final qualifying Squad 14 scheduled for 6 p.m. CET, followed by the ultimate one-game Desperado Squad slated for 9.30 p.m. Women receive 8 pins handicap each game (maximum score is 300), a standard on the European Bowling Tour.

A total of 46 players - the top 36 qualifiers, the top 4 from the Desperado Squad and the top 6 from a separate leaderboard of Squads 1-4 conducted Feb. 23-25 - will advance to the finals on Sunday, March 2. The top 6 qualifiers will receive one bye. The winner of the qualifying receives a 1.000 Euro bonus.

Players ranked 7 to 46 will bowl four games with the top 18 players joining the top six qualifiers in the eliminator finals. Those 24 players will be divided into six groups of four players each for the first of four eliminator rounds.

All four players of each group will bowl a two-game match with the two lowest scoring players eliminated. The two highest scoring players advance to the next round. In the first round four "lucky losers" (four highest third-place finishers) also advance.

The field will be cut to 16, eight and then four players who will bowl a final two-game round to determine the champion.

After the 2014 Brunswick Italia Challenge has been cancelled, the 2014 European Bowling Tour features 20 tournaments in 14 countries. In its 15th season, the EBT consists of two Platinum, six Gold, three Silver and nine Satellite tournaments. The total prize fund exceeds one million Euro.

The top 50 men and the top 50 women in each event receive ranking points. Those points will be tabulated throughout the season to determine the top 12 men and top 12 women, who will compete in the eighth EBT Masters July 6, 2015 in Asti, Italy.