MANILA, Philippines – Stallion Gilligan's drew strength from second half goals by Ruben Doctora, Jr. and Milan Justin Arends as it downed Army-General Trias International, 2-0, and breathe some life to its title-retention bid in the First Division of the United Football League at the Emperador Stadium Sunday night.
Doctora, 27, shattered the scoreless deadlock after he found a hole in Army-GTI's nearly impenetrable defense to score the first goal of the match on the 61st minute and give Stallion the needed edge.
Stallion then found an answer to every Army-GTI attack to preserve its one-goal advantage before Arends came through in added time to put the latter away. It also granted Stallion the full three points to improve to 18 points that somehow kept its bid of repeating as League champions.
The Ernest Nierras-mentored club needed to keep on piling up more wins though as it is currently running fourth behind Loyola Meralco Sparks, Global FC and LBC-bankrolled Kaya, which currently occupy first to the third places with 29, 28 and 21 points, respectively.
Stallion also bounced back from a heartbreaking 3-4 defeat at the hands of Team Socceroo Thursday.
It was also another sterling performance for Doctora, whose recall to the Phl Azkals team has him benefitting greatly as he has now scored three goals in his team's last four matches to lead the way.
In Second Division action, Air Force smashed Agila, 3-0, and Union Internacional Manila edged Nomads, 1-0, to boost their respective stocks.