Dost brace boosts Heerenveen

Bas Dost scored twice to take his Eredivisie tally up to 30 for the season as Heerenveen moved into fourth place with a 4-2 victory away at Heracles Almelo. Heerenveen also moved level on 61 points with AZ Alkmaar and Feyenoord in second and third, although they could slip back to sixth if FC Twente and PSV Eindhoven win their matches in hand tomorrow. Heracles' own outside hopes of claiming a UEFA Europa League play-off place receded further with this defeat, while Heerenveen have now scored 11 times in winning their last three away league games. Dost opened the scoring in the 13th minute and Luciano Narsingh doubled their advantage ten minutes into the second half. Willy Overtoom pulled one back with a penalty for Heracles, but Filip Djuricic made it 3-1 with a well-taken effort. Thomas Bruns cut the gap back to one but Dost finished what he had started with the sixth goal of the match ten minutes from time. Vitesse deal Excelsior defeat Vitesse Arnhem remain seventh after a 3-2 win over bottom side Excelsior to extend their unbeaten run to five matches. The visitors looked set to move above De Graafschap when an own goal from Jan-Arie van der Heijden and a Roland Alberg effort put them 2-0 in front. But Alexander Buttner pulled one back from the penalty spot in first-half injury time and, after Excelsior had Jordy van Deelen sent off in the 75th minute, levelled with another penalty ten minutes from time. And worse was to come for the ten men as Marco van Ginkel completed Vitesse's comeback two minutes into added time to condemn Excelsior to their sixth defeat in a row. NAC nearly clear NAC Breda climbed into 14th place with a 3-1 win away to FC Utrecht, leapfrogging ADO Den Haag after they lost 2-1 at VVV-Venlo. NAC had not won in six coming into this game and fell behind to a Frank Demouge goal in the ninth minute. But they stormed back to all but secure their top-flight status as first Robbert Schilder equalised with 18 minutes to go before Alex Schalk put them in front in the 89th minute and Jeffrey Sarpong added a third in injury time. Third-bottom VVV's win over ADO ended a seven-game losing streak and brought them to within four points of their opponents, who occupy the final position of safety, with two games to play. Barry Maguire gave VVV an early lead, but ADO equalised when Kenneth Omeruo headed home following a corner in the 19th minute. However, the Nigerian's evening quickly went downhill from there as he scored an own goal three minutes later to restore VVV's lead and was then sent off in the 69th minute for a second bookable offence.