Football: Kashiwa 3 pts off J1 top after draw with Niigata
Kashiwa have moved up to fourth place on 21 points, three points behind Kyoto and a point behind Kashima Antlers and Urawa Reds. Niigata are up to nine points but remain in the relegation zone, three points off safety.
Attacker Yota Komi scored a 14th-minute penalty to give a dominant Niigata the lead after Motoki Hasegawa was pushed to the floor from behind by Shumpei Naruse at Sankyo Frontier Stadium.
Kashiwa leveled in the 32nd minute when Tojiro Kubo sent a short pass into the box, and Yuto Yamada played the ball away from the goal to set up Masaki Watai, whose first-time effort found the right bottom corner.
Yoshio Koizumi and Kubo both wasted huge chances from close range minutes before the break for Kashiwa, while Jin Okumura steered his shot inches wide a minute into the second half for Niigata with Keisuke Kasai's 75th-minute header also narrowly off target.
"We were slack in the first 15 minutes. There's no easy game in the J1," Kashiwa manager Ricardo Rodriguez said. "We saw improvements from around the time we leveled the game, but we should have done that from the start."
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