J-League leaders Kashima Antlers survived a scare from last-place Albirex Niigata thanks to Leandro's second-half hat-trick as the champions roared back to win 4-2 on Saturday.

Kashima were staring at a two-goal deficit at halftime after Douglas Tanque and Rony struck for the hosts, who began dreaming of orchestrating the league's biggest upset of the season.

But it wasn't meant to be as Leandro struck the first of his three goals in the 49th minute before compounding the damage on 67 and 81 minutes to put Antlers in front.

Go Oiwa's men made the win a certainty in the final minute, when Daigo Nishi won a penalty which Mu Kanazaki converted, dashing any and all hopes of Albirex stealing points from the visitors.

Antlers, on 58 points, won their fourth in a row to keep their six-point cushion at the top of the table over Kawasaki Frontale with eight games left in the campaign.

"It was all about attitude," said Leandro, who bagged his first J-League hat-trick. "At halftime, we talked about needing to have a better attitude or risk losing this game, so we made some adjustments."

"If we play the entire 90 minutes with the mindset we had in the second half, we will be able to attain our goal of winning a championship."

Oiwa said he let his team know he wasn't happy with the first-half outage.

"Let's just say I had some words for them at halftime," the former Japan defender said. "We still have plenty of games left to play so we need to be ready for each and every one of them."

Niigata's view from the league cellar is becoming bleaker by the day. Wagner Lopes' side are on just 11 points -- 12 points from safety -- and will need a miracle of unseen proportions to return to J1 next season.

"I thought we had a good first half but then we conceded right away in the second half," Lopes said of Leandro's header from a corner. "Defending the set piece is something we've been working on in training so it's a shame."

In other games, Kawasaki shook off Wednesday's elimination from the Asian Champions League at the hands of Urawa Reds by sweeping past Shimizu S-Pulse 3-0 away to keep up with Kashima.

A late Cristiano free kick allowed third-place Kashiwa Reysol (50) to share the points in a 1-1 draw at Yokohama F Marinos (48), while Sanfrecce Hiroshima climbed out of the drop zone into 15th with a 1-0 home win over fourth-place Cerezo Osaka (48).

Ventforet Kofu traded places with Hiroshima into 16th after falling 2-1 at Sagan Tosu. Vissel defeated Consadole Sapporo 2-0 in Kobe, and FC Tokyo won 1-0 at home against Vegalta Sendai to hand Takayoshi Anma a win in his first game in charge.

Gamba Osaka drew 2-2 away to Omiya Ardija. Urawa travel to Jubilo Iwata on Sunday.