PARIS (AP) — Lois Openda scored the fastest French league hat trick in 50 years to help Lens move into third place with a 4-0 win over Clermont on Sunday.
Openda struck three times in 4 minutes, 30 seconds. According to stats provider Opta, that was four seconds quicker than Matt Moussilou’s treble in Lille’s 8-0 rout of Istres in April 2005.
Lens trails second-place Marseille by two points and is three points clear of Monaco.
Openda had not scored in his 11 previous games in all competitions, but he rediscovered his touch by slipping the ball through the legs of goalkeeper Mory Diaw in the 31st minute from a tight angle.
“It was quite a complicated period. It’s like a moment of relief,” Openda told Amazon Prime Video. “I never lost faith in me. My teammates never lost faith in me and it showed today.”
Hungry for more goals, Openda closed down Clermont midfielder Maxime Gonalons, who lost possession to Adrien Thomasson in the 34th. A selfless Thomasson set up Openda, who doubled the lead with a low strike.
The Belgian striker then intercepted a poor back pass from Mateusz Wieteska to round Diaw in the 35th and slot into an empty net for his 12th league goal this season.
Lens substitute Alexis Claude-Maurice sealed the win in the 76th with a goal set up by Openda.
In other games, Strasbourg midfielder Jean-Eudes Aholou scored two late goals to salvage a 2-2 draw with 10-man Marseille.
Aholou pulled one back with a looping shot in the 88th after the Marseille defense failed to clear a corner. A minute later, Aholou equalized with a long-range strike into the top corner. He nearly got his hat trick in stoppage time but Marseille goalkeeper Pau Lopez saved his close-range attempt.
Marseille was down to 10 men in the 29th minute when Leonardo Balerdi was sent off for bringing down Strasbourg striker Habib Diallo, who chested down a long ball to bear down on goal.
Chancel Mbemba scored against the run of play in the 49th after Strasbourg goalkeeper Matz Sels had palmed away a free kick from Ruslan Malinovskyi. Alexis Sanchez added a second goal with a penalty in the 76th after Strasbourg defender Frederic Guilbert had fouled him.
Monaco lost ground in the race for the Champions League spots with a 1-0 defeat to Reims.
English striker Folarin Balogun notched his 16th league goal by scoring in the 51st.
Monaco hit the woodwork twice. Wissam Ben Yedder’s chip bounced off the far post in the 30th while Vanderson’s diagonal strike hit the base of the post in the 50th.
Reims kept a sixth straight clean sheet in the league and extended its unbeaten run to 19 games to pull within four points of the European spots. Monaco has only one point from its last three games to drop to fourth.
Nice missed an opportunity to make up ground in the race for European spots as it twice wasted the lead in a 2-2 draw with Nantes to stay seventh.
Nigeria forward Terem Moffi opened the scoring with a downward header in the fifth minute before Nantes midfielder Moussa Sissoko leveled by heading home a free kick in the 31st.
Burundi defender Youssouf Ndayishimiye thought he had given Nice the win with a low strike in the 71st but Nantes substitute Mostafa Mohamed equalized with a powerful header in the 88th.
Lorient went level on points with Nice by beating Troyes 2-0 with goals from Senegal forward Bamba Dieng in the ninth and substitute Stephane Diarra in stoppage time. Troyes extended its winless run to 10 games to remain in the relegation zone.
Midtable Toulouse snapped a three-game losing streak by defeating bottom-side Angers 2-0 with goals from Danish right back Mikkel Desler in the 37th and Dutch striker Thijs Dallinga in the 47th. The game was suspended for a few minutes after Dallinga’s goal because some supporters set off fireworks behind Angers goalkeeper Paul Bernardoni’s goal, burning the back of the net, which needed to be repaired.
Montpellier beat struggling Ajaccio 1-0 with a goal from substitute Elye Wahi in the 68th to stretch its unbeaten run to five games since Michel Der Zakarian took over as coach.
On Saturday, Paris Saint-Germain edged Brest 2-1 to extend its lead to 10 points.
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More AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
