Highlands Park showed incredible grit and determination as they came back from a goal down to defeat Absa Premiership leaders Bidvest Wits 2-1 at Makhulong Stadium.

The result leaves the Clever Boys just three points clear of second-placed Mamelodi Sundowns, who still have three games in hand.

The first real chance of the match fell to Highlands Park’s Mokete Mogaila, who found himself through one on one on goal but wasn’t able to beat Darren Keet, who did superbly to make the save.

And that missed chance would come to bite the Lions of the North just four minutes later when Gift Motupa opened the scoring for Wits after meeting a well-weighted cross with a glancing header into the net.

To the home side’s credit they did not allow their heads to drop and were rewarded with an equaliser just five minutes later.

It was a long throw-in to the box that did the trick, allowing Peter Shalulile to get the better of Keet with a well-placed header at the far post.

Motupa looked to be in with a golden chance of adding a second on the half-hour mark when he found himself one-on-one with only the ‘keeper to beat, but the linesman’s flag came to Marlon Heugh’s rescue as he signalled for offside.

Simon Murray had a great chance to put Wits back in front five minutes before the break, but he couldn’t find the target with his effort despite being unmarked inside the Highlands box.

The second half started slowly with neither team able to carve out any dominance over the other or give the goalkeepers much work to do.

The longer the Lions were able to hold out, however, the more their confidence grew, and they were rewarded for their impressive play against the league leaders in the 71st minute as they took the lead via the boot of Mokete Mogaila.

After being put through on goal, Mogaila showed incredible composure to calmly round Keet in goal and slot the ball into an empty net. 

And with their defence having looked solid all afternoon, the Lions were able to hold off the Students without too much fuss to secure a valuable three points that lifted them to ninth on the table.