Valaranta remains atop the leaderboard

Two players cracked the top 8 in the fifth qualifying squad of the Ebonite Lahti Open Monday evening at Jouni Helminen's Lahti Bowl in Lahti, Finland.

Kari Hurri l(pictured left) ed the squad behind games of 236, 236, 215, 236, 198 and 194 to move into third place in the overall qualifying standings. Hurri tied second-place Matti Knutar with 1315 six-game total, an average of 219.17, but Knutar had the higher last game (253) to break the tie.

"I found the right ball and the right place, it has always worked for me to stay outside. Playing felt really natural," said Hurri after his first and most probably last entry as 1315 should be enough to make the first cut.

Day one leader Samu Valaranta remained atop the leaderboard with 1335 six-game total and an average of 222.50.

The top-ranked woman, Laura Tuomisalo, and Mika Oksanen slipped one spot to fourth and fifth place with 1306 and 1292, respectively.

Long-time Finnish national team member Krista Pöllänen (right) from Lahti was second in squad #5 with 1292 including 48 pins women’s handicap. Pöllänen, who won the gold medal in Singles at the 2009 World Games in Kaohsiung, Chinese Taipei, moved into 6th place with Kalle Huusko and Jenni Mäkelä, all from Finland, in 7th and 8th with 1272.

Qualifying continues on Thursday with squads 6 and 7 at 3pm and 7pm featuring 2008 Ebonite Lahti Open champion and current European Bowling Tour ranking leader Osku Palermaa.

The Ebonite Lahti Open is the 12th stop of the 2009 European Bowling Tour and one of the Tour's "Challenger" events. The tournament will be held from Oct. 10-18, 2009 at Jouni Helminen's fully renovated Lahti Bowl in Lahti, Finland, and offers an increased total prize fund of 49.200 Euro, or about 72,500 U.S. dollars. The winner will receive the 8.000 Euro top prize.

Qualifying runs through Saturday, Oct. 17, and ends with Squad 14 and the ultimate one-game Desperado Squad slated for 11.30 p.m. local time (GMT +3) on Saturday night.

A total of 40 players - the top 36 from the qualifying (six games) and top 4 from the Desperado Squad - will advance to the finals on Sunday, Oct. 18. The top 8 qualifiers will earn one bye and will be seeded into Final Round 2.

The remaining 32 players will bowl 6 games starting from scratch. The top 12 join the top 8 qualifiers and bowl 5 games from scratch with the top 10 advancing to Round 3. Those 10 players will bowl another 5-game series with the pinfall from Round 2 being carried forward to cut to the top 4 who will advance to the stepladder finals.

The No. 4 seed meets the No. 3 seed, the winner takes on the No. 2 for the right to bowl the No. 1 for the title. All stepladder matches are single game matches.

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Qualifying Standings after Squad 5/14