Ittihad thrashed Al-Hazm 5-2 in a round 16 match of the Saudi Zain Professional League at Prince Abdullah Al-Faisal Stadium here Wednesday. Al-Ittihad thus maintained its third position with 29 points while Hazm is eighth with 16 points. The two teams still have two suspended matches. A hat trick by the Moroccan striker Hicham Aboucherouane and two goals by Sultan Al-Numari and Talal Al-Misha'al powered the champion to the impressive victory. The goals of Hazm came from two midfielders, the Senegalese Hamad Ji and Ahmed Minawir. Al-Nasr defeated its host Al-Qadisiyah 2-0 at Prince Saudi Bin Jalawi Sports City Stadium. The host played well in the beginning despite Sahlawi's goal. In the 24th minute, Mohammed Al-Sahlawi, former player of Qadisiyah, received a cross from the Argentinean midfielder Victor Alberto Figueroa. It only took Sahlawi a slide to put it into the goal. From a free kick in the 52nd minute, skipper Husain Abdul-Ghani sent the ball to the closely-guarded Sahlawi who headed it into the goal. Four minutes later, Al-Qadisiyah coach Daniel Carlos made two substitutions to strengthen his frontline in vain. On the other hand, Nasr coach Jorge da Silva replaced striker Sa'ad Al-Harthi with the South Korean midfielder Lee Chun-soo to add more balance to his team. He then replaced Sahlawi with another striker. He also replaced Abdullah Mousa with Ibrahim Ghalib in the 91st minute. Nasr is now fourth in the standings (21) with three matches in hand while Al-Qadisiyah is 10th with 11 points. In another match, the ten-man Al-Fateh shared the spoils (2-2) with its host Al-Shabab, league runner-up, at Prince Faisal Bin Fahd Stadium. Faisal Al-Sultan put Shabab in the lead in the sixth minute before Ahmed Bou-Obaid of the guest team leveled the score with a header ten minutes later. Tunisian defender of the Al-Fateh, Ramzi Bin Younes put his team ahead in the 24th minute. About 13 minutes after the break, Fateh midfielder, Faisal Yousof was shown the red card. Al-Sultan succeeded to equalize in the 91st minute for host team. Shabab still trails leader Hilal (38) as second by three points. Al
