J-League wrap: Kashiwa still on top, Sendai held

Kashiwa Reysol retained their lead at the top of the J-League with a comfortable 3-0 away win over Albirex Niigata on Saturday.

Brazilian Jorge Wagner opened the scoring for the visitors in the 24th minute, before Naoya Kondo (61) and Masato Kudo (81) added second-half goals to record Kashiwa’s fifth win of the season.

Vegalta Sendai missed the chance to move outright second after a late Hidetaka Kanazono goal in injury-time salvaged a point for Jubilo Iwata in a 3-3 draw.

Naoki Sugai and Shingo Akamine gave Sendai the perfect start inside the first 10 minutes before Hiroki Yamada and Ryohei Yamazaki leveled proceedings for Jubilo after the break.

A header from Makoto Kakuda handed Sendai a 3-2 lead in the 87th minute before Kanazono’s late heroics saved the day for the visitors.

Sanfrecce Hiroshima sit second on goal difference from Sendai after an exciting 3-2 win over Yokohama F Marinos.

Tadanari Lee scored twice in the first half and Georgian midfielder David Mujiri added another on 67 minutes as Sanfrecce grabbed their third win of the season.

Yuji Nakazawa and Shunsuke Nakamura scored the goals for Yokohama.

In Saturday’s other matches, Vissel Kobe are fifth after a 5-1 thrashing of Shimizu S-Pulse thanks to doubles from Yoshito Okubo and Ken Tokura, while Keigo Higashi scored in the 29th minute as Omiya Ardija beat Montedio Yamagata 1-0.