Southampton Rangers 6

BAA 0

Southampton Rangers thumped pointless BAA at Southampton Oval on Sunday to climb to the top of the standings.

Rangers led 3-0 at the half and continued the onslaught after the break to move to the head of the class.

Khalil Symonds bagged a brace while Kamen Tucker, Donnie Charles, Jermaine Dill and Omari Hart were also on target for promotion chasing Rangers who now control their own destiny.

"It's crunchtime and we hold our destiny in our own hands," declared player/coach Janeiro Tucker. "We are just going to take things one game at a time and not take anything for granted.

"And if we can play to our full potential promotion should be no problem for us."

Hamilton Parish 2

St.David's 2

These two East End rivals did their promotion hopes no favours when they battled to a draw at Lords.

Parish might have left the ground kicking themselves after surrendering a two-goal advantage that enabled Southampton Rangers to leapfrog them into pole position.

Hot Peppers stormed ahead with first-half goals by Thiago Machado and Kaiya Darrell who was rushed to hospital shortly after converting after clashing heads with St.David's' Bayon Robinson.

Darrell's loss seemed to knock Parish off-stride and the Islanders eventually hit back through late goals from Otis Minors and player/president Aaron Lugo to salvage a valuable point.

St.David's trail Southampton Rangers by two-points but have a game in hand against the leaders.

"We started of slowly against Parish but managed get a crucial point," Lugo said. "And although we have a game in hand you can never underestimate your opponents and so we are going to take it one game at a time."

Somerset Eagles 5

Prospect United 0

Darin Dowling was the toast of White Hill Field on Sunday as he bagged a hat- trick to lead the home team to a comfortable win.

Player/coach Kenny Thompson and Anwar Telford also got their names on the scoresheet as Eagles had things all their own way.

Eagles currently lie in third but with only one game remaining in their season, chances of them gaining one of the two promotion spots look bleak as Rangers, Wolves, St.David's and X Roads all have games in hand.

Still, Eagles president Marc Bean is determined to keep hope alive.

"There's still an outside chance we can gain promotion," he said. "However, our destiny is no longer in our own hands and so we are hoping for a miracle and a few results to go our way.

"We must win our final game (against Paget) and a couple of draws here and there and we're back in the equation."

St.George's Colts 0

X Roads 1

St.George's' promotion hopes went out the window at Wellington Oval when they lost to visiting X Roads who defied the odds by beating their hosts despite playing most of the match with only nine-men.

Nashon Smith scored the decisive goal that kept X Roads, who played the first 20 minutes with only eight-men, thick in one of the closest promotion races in recent memory.

Adding to St.George's' woes was the fact they also missed a first-half penalty.

Afterwards X Roads coach Saleem Talbot hailed his team's remarkable accomplishment, describing it as nothing short of a "miracle".

"We believe in miracles and things like this don't happen too often," he said. "Even the referee (Anthony Francis) couldn't believe the final result and really we should've won the match 3-0.

"It was a tremendous performance and I am very pleased with the type of character the team showed."

Wolves 1 Social Club 3

Social Club scored all four goals in this First Division encounter under the lights at Devonshire Recreation Club on Friday night.

The fast-improving Bluebirds' night got off to an inauspicious start when Social Club netted an own goal to give Wolves the early lead.

But the visitors regrouped and hit back through goals from Nathan Simons, former North Village striker Quincy Paynter and Clay Darrell from the penalty spot to secure a seventh league win of the season.

Social Club technical director Troy Lewis hopes his club can continue to make positive strides moving forward.

"I think we have some very positive players and a lot of the guys are now looking outside of themselves and helping out - especially with some of our younger players coming up through the ranks," he said.

Premier Division Ireland Rangers were not relegated following Sunday's 2-1 loss to PHC as was previously reported.

Mathematically Rangers can still reel in sixth-placed Devonshire Colts (12 pts) with two games remaining in the 2008 Premier Division schedule.

The Royal Gazette apologizes for the error.