T&T's Women War­riors got their cam­paign in the Caribbean Queen's Friend­ly Foot­ball Tour­na­ment off to a per­fect start, pulling off a come-from-be­hind 2-1 vic­to­ry over Aru­ba at the Rig­naal Jean Sta­di­um in Cu­ra­cao Wednes­day night.

It was ex­act­ly what coach Richard Hood had been hop­ing for, as he ex­pressed con­cerns about his play­ers' fit­ness lev­els, cou­pled with a turf sur­face to which his charges were un­ac­cus­tomed. Still, with a team stacked with youth and ex­pe­ri­enced play­ers, the Richard Hood-coached team was com­pet­i­tive at the start, though the Arubans en­joyed the bet­ter of the pos­ses­sion ear­li­er on.

But it was the Arubans who drew the first blood in the third minute. Aisse Gombs stormed down the left flank and found cap­tain So­raya Ver­ho­eve to the left of the T&T area. But though be­ing pres­sured by a cou­ple of de­fend­ers, Ver­ho­eve still found room to un­leash a thump­ing shot that sailed over T&T goal­keep­er Mikaela Year­wood and in­to the back post for the 1-0 ad­van­tage in the fifth minute.

The goal plunged the Arubans in­to wild cel­e­bra­tions which did not last too long.

A minute lat­er Aru­ba cus­to­di­an Bestzile Stam­po com­mit­ted the ul­ti­mate sin when she tried to find her de­fend­er with a fee­ble pass across her own goal area, but it was in­ter­cept­ed by strik­er Tori Paul who on­ly had the priv­i­lege of fir­ing the ball in­to an emp­ty Aru­ba net for a 1-1 score­line.

The teams went to the half­time in­ter­val with the scores lev­eled at one apiece and when they re­turned, Hood's charges looked more pur­pose­ful, de­spite un­com­fort­able un­der­foot con­di­tions.

How­ev­er, they got the win­ning goal in the 69th minute. Vic­to­ria Swift de­liv­ered from a right-side cor­ner and over­lap­ping de­fend­er Shau­na Lee Govia bun­dled the ball in­side, de­spite fever­ish at­tempts by the Aru­ba de­fend­ers to clear it.

The Women War­riors will Thurs­day face Cu­ra­cao in their sec­ond match of the tour­na­ment tonight at 7 pm at the same venue.

T&T SQUAD

GOAL­KEEP­ERS: Mikaela Year­wood, Maya Figgen­er

MID­FIELD­ERS: Kedie John­son, Orielle Mar­tin, Rashe­da Archer, Tori Paul, Che­ri­na Steele, Mari­ah Williams, Tayeann Wylie

DE­FEND­ERS: Vic­to­ria Swift, Shau­nalee Govia, Lati­ha Pas­call, Kait­lyn Dar­went, Anas­ta­sia O’Brien, Kani­ka Ro­driguez, Ar­i­ana Bor­neo, Chris­sy Mitchell, Hac­k­eemar Goodridge

FOR­WARDS: Alex­cia Ali, Talia Mar­t­inm So­nia Lamarre, Asha James