Sub­sti­tute Josi­mar Bel­grave scored a sec­ond half hat-trick to res­cue an un­like­ly 3-3 draw for De­fence Force against North East Stars, in their round-two Dig­i­cel T&T Pro League clash at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo, on Sat­ur­day night.

Both Stars and De­fence Force en­tered the match lev­el on three points from their open­ing day vic­to­ries over Neal & Massy Cale­do­nia AIA (3-1) and St Ann's Rangers (2-1) re­spec­tive­ly, and were keen for a sec­ond win to go top of the ta­ble.

And with­in ten min­utes, Stars coach An­gus Eve was hand­ed the start he want­ed. Speedy winger Mic­ah Lewis got the open­er from a Cor­nell Glen pass against a De­fence Force squad mi­nus its four re­turn­ing na­tion­al play­ers in strik­ers De­vorn Jorsling and Richard Roy, winger Kevon Carter and de­fend­er Cur­tis Gon­za­les.

Stars went fur­ther ahead sev­en min­utes in­to the sec­ond half when Glen played provider for a sec­ond time with a flight­ed cross which de­fend­er Seon Pow­er ham­mered past goal­keep­er Shel­don Clarke. Glen com­plet­ed his third as­sist in the 55th minute when he put through his for­mer So­ca War­riors team-mate Ker­ry Bap­tiste.

Bap­tiste re­mained calm as he slot­ted the ball past Clarke for a well de­served 3-0 cush­ion, and what seemed a cer­tain vic­to­ry. Glen al­most made it 4-0 when he lobbed Clarke on­ly to see his ef­fort cleared off the goalline by a des­per­ate lung­ing Devin Jor­dan.

With his team down for the count, De­fence Force coach Ross Rus­sell in­tro­duced Bel­grave for the in-ef­fec­tive Ronald St Louis in the 61st minute. And with­in two min­utes of be­ing on the pitch, Bel­grave pulled a goal back to of­fer some hope to the mil­i­tary.

His ini­tial shot came back off the post and an alert Bel­grave was the first to re­act, lung­ing on to the ball be­fore elud­ing goal­keep­er Cleon John and tap­ping in­to a gap­ing net. Eight min­utes lat­er, Bel­grave sliced Stars' lead to just one, when he held off the tack­le from na­tion­al Un­der-23 mid­field­er, Jayson Joseph and De­von Jamer­son, and blast­ed past John from just in­side the 18-yard box to bring the match alive.

Things got from bad to worst for Stars as Glen then pulled up lame in the 75th minute with what seemed a ham­string prob­lem and was re­placed by Kay­don Gabriel. Eve al­so re­placed his half-time in­tro­duc­tion in Jamer­son with de­fend­er Glen­ton Wolfe as he tried to hang on for the win.

With three min­utes left in the con­test, De­fence Force won a free-kick just out­side the 18-yard box when Pow­er bun­dled over sub­sti­tute strik­er Jemel Se­bro. Bel­grave then stepped up and took the free-kick which de­flect­ed off the wall and found its way through the legs of goal­keep­er John to earn De­fence Force a share of the points.

De­spite the melt­down, Stars still lead the ta­ble with four points from two match­es, the same as De­fence Force, but with a su­pe­ri­or goal-dif­fer­ence of plus-two to the Teteron Boys plus-one. Po­lice, league debu­tants Cen­tral FC and T&&TEC are next with three points each.

De­fend­ing cham­pi­ons, Di­recTV W Con­nec­tion and Cale­do­nia are both on one point af­ter their 1-1 draw on Fri­day at Mara­bel­la while Rangers is yet to earn a point. In Sat­ur­day's first match at Mu­cu­rapo, a first half hat-trick by strik­er Bevon Bass hand­ed T&TEC its first win of the sea­son, 3-2 over Rangers.

Bass scored in the fifth, 29th and 42nd min­utes while Ja­son Mar­cano (13th) and De­von Mod­este (18th penal­ty) were on tar­get for the losers.