Nigel Si­mon

Strik­er Ker­ry Bap­tiste proved once again to be the de­cid­ing fac­tor, as he fired in a pair of goals for bmo­bile Joe Pub­lic to se­cure a come-from-be­hind 3-1 win over Cli­co San Juan Jabloteh in a re-sched­uled Dig­i­cel Pro League "Big Six" match on Tues­day night. Go­ing in­to the en­counter at the Mar­vin Lee Sta­di­um, Ma­coya, the "East­ern Li­ons" held a slim one-point lead over two-time de­fend­ing league cham­pi­on Jabloteh in the race for the league crown.

How­ev­er, with the win, Joe Pub­lic now holds a com­fort­able five-point cush­ion and al­so heads the Big Six" with max­i­mum nine points from three match­es and two left to play. Jabloteh, which went in­to the clash with the hope of over­tak­ing its ri­val at the top of the ta­ble, went ahead in the 18th minute through a head­er from mid­field­er Mar­vin Oliv­er off an An­ton Hutchin­son cen­tre. Oliv­er's strike last­ed un­til two min­utes be­fore the in­ter­val, as Bap­tiste head­ed his team lev­el for a 1-1 half­time score. Mic­ah Lewis sup­plied the cross.

Five min­utes in­to the sec­ond half, Bap­tiste, who al­so got both goals in his team's 2-1 win over De­fence Force on Sat­ur­day, fired Joe Pub­lic in­to the lead from the penal­ty-spot af­ter de­fend­er Glen­ton Wolfe had brought down the speedy Lewis in the 18-yard box. It was the 34th goal of the league sea­son for Bap­tiste. It put him with­in two of the in­di­vid­ual scor­ing record of 36 set in 2004 by North East Stars' Jer­ren Nixon. Four min­utes from full­time Hay­den Tin­to cap­i­talised on some slop­py goal­keep­ing by Jabloteh's Cleon John to seal his team's win which moved it on the brink on its first ti­tle un­der new coach Derek King.

Re­sults

Tues­day

Joe Pub­lic 3 (Ker­ry Bap­tiste 43rd, 55th pen, Hay­den Tin­to 86th) vs Jabloteh 1 (Mar­vin Oliv­er 18th)

Sat­ur­day

Jabloteh vs W Con­nec­tion, Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va

Ma Pau vs De­fence Force, Lar­ry Gomes Sta­di­um, Mal­abar

Joe Pub­lic vs Cale­do­nia, Mar­vin Lee Sta­di­um, Ma­coya.