Arianna Del Moral scored twice and Sara Saliba followed up with a second-half goal to hand Birkirkara a crucial victory over title rivals Swieqi United in Thursday’s head-to-head.

This win sees Birkirkara open an eight-point lead over Swieqi and with four games left, the Stripes have one hand on a seventh straight title, their 12th overall.

Jose Borg’s side broke the deadlock early through Arianna Del Moral, who had also scored against Swieqi in December’s Super Cup final.

The American midfielder doubled Birkirkara’s lead just before the half-hour mark.

Youngster Sara Saliba extended Birkirkara’s lead to three goals after coming off the bench.

Swieqi did pull one back through captain Dorianne Theuma but it was too little too late for them to rescue a positive result from this game.

In addition, Swieqi have now seen their lead over Hibernians cut to just a couple of points after the Paolites defeated Mġarr United.

Alexis Espitia scored the all-important winner in the second half to overcome an in-form Mġarr who were at the back of a Swieqi win and a draw against Birkirkara.

For Espitia, this was her 13th strike of the season as she remains the club’s best scorer.

In the Bottom Four, Valletta continued their winning run after seeing off Mtarfa 8-0.

Captain Anna Aloisio netted a hat-trick while the other goals were scored by Sarah Vella Barberi, Ylenia Grech, Miriana Conti, Laura Muscat and Georgiana Mifsud.

Elsewhere, San Ġwann and Lija Athletic met in a close match with the former clinching the three points after a narrow 2-1 win.

Tourki Chaimaa and Andela Kricak scored for San Ġwann while Lija Athletic’s scorer was Shakira Bugeja.