A?bizarre goal from Benedikt Hoewedes helped Schalke earn a morale-boosting 2-0 win over Bayern Munich in the Bundesliga on Saturday that could leave the defending champion even further behind in the title race.

Elsewhere, Fanis Gekas brought his league-high season tally to 13 goals with a late penalty winner for Frankfurt in a 2-1 victory over second-place Mainz.

Mainz remains second behind Dortmund, which is now assured of top spot going into the winter break. The leader has a seven-point cushion and a game in hand. Dortmund is now 14 points ahead of Bayern and could increase the gap.

Hoewedes, a defender, met a deep probing cross from Peer Kluge with his head. It rebounded off the right post but he reacted quickly to meet the rebound behind goalkeeper Joerg Butt at the other post.

Jose Jurado scored Schalke's first goal in the 58th minute after capitalizing on some great work from Raul Gonzalez. The Spaniard obstinately got past Breno on the edge of the area before his shot was blocked by Anatoliy Tymoshchuk. The ball fell kindly for the onrushing Jurado who crashed it in off the right post. Raul was injured in the clash with Tymoshchuk and was subsequently taken off by coach Felix Magath.

Schalke remains 15th, but now has four points more than Stuttgart.

Wolfsburg and Werder Bremen continued their disappointing seasons by playing out a scoreless draw with both teams missing a penalty in the space of three minutes.

Hannover completed a comeback over 10-man Borussia Moenchengladbach with two goals in three minutes from Mike Hanke and Didier Ya Konan.

Stuttgart and 10-man Hoffenheim shared the points in a 1-1 draw. Papiss Demba Cisse gave Freiburg a 1-0 win over Hamburger SV.