Dempo Sports Club came back into the reckoning by defeating Mohammedan Sporting by a 2-0 margin in their ninth round of ONGC [Get Quote] I League at Yuba Bharati Krirangan in Kolkata on Thursday.

Both the goals came in the first half.

After Antony Periera put the Goanese side into the lead early in the first half, striker Ranty Martins consolidated the lead five minutes before the breather.

With this victory Dempo have propelled themselves to the 4th position in the league table having collected 14 points from nine matches while Mohammedans slid down to ninth place with as many points from same number of outings.

After ninth round, Sporting Club de Goa [Images] are in the lead with 19 points and are followed by Air India (Mumbai) and Churchill Brothers (Goa) with 16 and 14 points respectively.

With Man of the Match Climax Lawrence scheming their moves, the Goans dominated the proceedings most of the time and came near scoring early.

But a Beto attempt was nicely saved by Mohammedan keeper Tharanga. Tharanga today brought off a number of saves to restrict the mergin to two goals only.

But Dempo did not have to wait long for the lead as striker Antony Periera off a nice pass from defender Samir Naik unleashed a powerful left footer for which Tharanga did not have any answer.

Dempo kept up their pressure and doubled their lead in the 40th minute. Forward Joachima's shot was palmed out by Tharanga, and opportunistic Ranty Martins, who was lurking in the rival area unmarked found the target with a right footer. 

The second half saw Mohammedans making some desparate attempts but failed to reduce the margin as Goanese custodian Satish Kumar thwarted all the attempts.