American handyman Charles Kazlauskas played the late hero in TOP Oss' 2-2 first leg promotion playoff draw against Helmond Sport on Tuesday night.

The teams went scoreless in the opening period, but all hell broke loose after the break. Davy Zafarin appeared to put the home side ahead early in the second half by following up on a Dirk Schoofs restart rebound, but a suspect offside flag kept the game searching for its first goal.

Despite not offering much in the way of clinical attack up to that point, Helmond took the lead on 59 minutes. A long throw was weakly cleared by Eric Quekel and Marc Höcher was on hand to punish TOP with a low volley from the edge of the box.

Mere seconds later, however, the Men from Oss were level as Azil Moutawakil capitalized on some similarly shoddy defending to rocket home from the right channel.

Helmond responded a minute later, reclaiming the advantage when Elrio van Leerdam lashed home Höcher's cutback on the fly.

The teams traded half chances until added time, when Kazlauskas chested down a pinballing free kick to fire a deserved TOP equalizer on the volley.

The series switches to Helmond Sport on Saturday. The winner will play Eredivisie stragglers De Graafschap for a place in one of the two playoff finals.

Scoring
HEL - Marc Höcher 1 59'
TOP - Azil Moutawakil 1 60'
HEL - Ekrio van Leerdam 1 (Marc Höcher) 61'
TOP - Charles Kazalauskas 1 (Yvo van Engelen) 90+3'

TOP - Wilko de Vogt; Yvo van Engelen, Niek Ripson, Leon van Dalen (Dmitri Djollo 81'), Bart van Hintum, Dirk Schoofs, Charles Kazlauskas, Davy Zafarin (Revy Rosalia 87'), Azil Moutawakil, Eric Quekel, Wouter van den Herik (Brahim Bouhadan 62')