Oguchi Onyewu and Standard Liège rode a pair of second half strikes past Sunday visitors Mons to build a seven-point Jupiler League penthouse cushion.

The US defender provided 90 sturdy minutes to help his club post their first clean sheet since February 27th.

Mons came out with the idea of scoring early, with Rorys Espinoza forced to tip over an eighth minute Benjamin Nicaise free kick.

The Dragons continued to breathe surprising fire and Nicaise narrowly missed high with a 39th minute restart header.

Standard finally grabbed the game by the collar just before halftime, but would not collect the reward until six minutes after intermission when Dieumerci Mbokani did the light work from a Milan Jovanovic rebound.

Twelve minutes before time, Réginal Goreux netted his first career goal by firing home a loose ball in the area.

Standard will now hit the road to face KV Mechelen on Saturday.

Scoring
SL - Dieumerci Mbokani 10 53'
SL - Réginal Goreux 1 78'

Line-ups
SL - Rorys Aragon Espinoza; Marcos Camozzato (Fred 89'), Oguchi Onyewu, Mohamed Sarr, Dante Costa, Landry Mulemo (Sirimana Dembele 89'), Marouane Fellaini, Réginal Goreux, Axel Witsel, Milan Jovanovic, Dieumerci Mbokani (Igor De Camargo 81')

MONS - Frédéric Herpoel; Frédéric Jay, Danijel Krivic (Ali Lukunku 65'), Roberto Mirri, Daré Nibombe, Alessandro Cordaro, Wilfried Dalmat, Benjamin Nicaise (Romeo Seka 76'), Hocine Ragued, Mohamed Dahmane, François Zoko (Ilja Stolica 76')

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ON THE SIDELINE
Greg Dalby did not dress for 10th place Charleroi's 1-0 win over Lokeren.