Three sec­ond-half goals from the boot of Ash­lyn An­der­son in the 63rd minute, Micay­la John­son in the 78th and Chloe Sadler in the 90th minute shat­tered a stur­dy T&T de­fen­sive wall and earned the Unit­ed States a 3-0 vic­to­ry over T&T’s So­ca Princess­es when the fi­nal round of the CON­CA­CAF World Cup Qual­i­fiers in Group C kicked off at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um in Bal­main, Cou­va on Monday.

Na­tion­al coach Ayan­na Rus­sell’s call for a dis­ci­plined ap­proach to the USA worked in her favour in the open­ing half.

Play­ing with just Orielle Mar­tin as the lone strik­er up front, the T&T team start­ed with five play­ers across the mid­field but soon was forced to pull her en­tire team back to fend off the Amer­i­cans who at­tacked in num­bers from the start.

Pearl Ce­cil got the first shot at the T&T goal, dash­ing in to meet Charlee Siria’s cross but goal­keep­er Zaira Aimey in the T&T goal kept it out af­ter five min­utes. Five min­utes lat­er, John­son who posed trou­ble for the T&T de­fence all night long, was found un­marked in­side the penal­ty area, but her at­tempt was saved by Aimey.

The bat­tle be­tween the re­gion’s tenth and first-ranked teams pro­vid­ed hope for the home team with Rus­sell’s charges de­fend­ing stout­ly in the open­ing mo­ments against a dom­i­nant US at­tack. Still, the USA team, win­ners of six tour­na­ments to date, did not re­lent as John­son forced the T&T cus­to­di­an in­to ac­tion in the 37th minute, hold­ing on to John­son’s left-foot­ed shot in the six-yard box.

Rus­sell and her charges were cheered off the field by fans at the end of the first half, sens­ing that a point could be sal­vaged against the might of the Amer­i­cans. Soon af­ter the re­sump­tion of the match, Aimey went full-stretch to push wide a thump­ing shot from Jaiden Ro­driguez in the 50th minute to pre­serve a goal­less score­line.

But the T&T’s de­fen­sive wall was bro­ken in the 63rd minute. John­son, on an­oth­er of her runs down the left flank, cen­tred for Sadler whose at­tempt at a snap­shot was blocked, but An­der­son pounced on the re­bound, stab­bing in the loose ball for a 1-0 lead for USA.

Rus­sell then took off the hard-work­ing Mar­tin, who was re­spon­si­ble for the team’s lone cor­ner in the first half, for the fresh legs of Giu­liana Mey­er. But it had lit­tle in­flu­ence in the T&T’s at­tack­ing game as the USA dou­bled their score in the 78th minute.

This time mid­field­er Ce­cil used her height to meet the right-sided cor­ner, head­ing it to an un­marked John­son to con­nect one-time with a turn­ing shot which flew past Aimey in­to the top left-hand cor­ner of the goal for a 2-0 mar­gin.

The game seemed to have been head­ing for a 2-0 win for the USA. How­ev­er, on the stroke of reg­u­la­tion time, Sadler picked up the ball all alone at the top of the T&T penal­ty area and she drilled it hard and low past Aimey in­to the bot­tom right cor­ner for a 3-0 win.

T&T will next meet El Sal­vador Wednes­day at 7 pm while the USA will clash with Hon­duras from 4 pm at the same venue.

Teams

T&T: 1 Zaira Aimey (GK), 2 Kait­lyn Dar­went, 3 Hac­k­eemar Goodridge, 4 Diem Sealey, 6 Che­ri­na Steele, 7 Rashe­da Archer, 8 Ty’kaiya Den­nis, 10 Orielle Mar­tin, 12 Rori Git­tens, 15 Kani­ka Ro­driguez, 17 Mikaela Year­wood.

Subs: 18 Ken­isha Tay­lor (GK), 21 Alex­ia Dol­land (GK), 5 Taya Williams, 9 Mia Lee Chong, 11 San­ni Wil­son, 13 Zye­sha Potts, 14 Cher­ine Steele, 16 Madi­son Camp­bell, 19 Giu­liana Mey­er, 20 Jes­si­ca Nes­bitt

USA: 1 Evan O’steen (GK), 2 Cali O’ neil, 3 Syd­ney Schmidt, 4 Pearl Ce­cil, 5 Na­tal­ie Chu­dows­ki, 6 Charlee Siria, 9 Nyanya Touray, 11 Micay­la John­son, 16 Scot­tie An­tonuc­ci (Cpt), 17 Jaiden Ro­driguez, Mag­gie Cur­rie

Subs: 12 Josie Biehl (GK), 21 Pey­ton Tray­er, 7 Kim­mi As­canio, 8 Ri­ley Kennedy, 10 Chloe Sadler, 13 Rhi­an­non Ma­hon, 14 Ash­lyn An­der­son, 15 Lau­ren He­mann, 18 Au­drey Mc­k­een, Gra­cie Mil­am

Re­sults

• ↓T&T 0 vs USA 3 (Ash­lyn An­der­son 63rd, Micay­la John­son 78th, Chloe Sadler 90th)

• ↓El Sal­vador 1 vs Hon­duras 1