T&T So­ca War­riors' hope of ad­vanc­ing to the quar­ter­fi­nal round of the Con­ca­caf Gold Cup was left hang­ing Thurs­day night when they played to a 1-1 tie with ten-man Haiti in their sec­ond match in Group D at the Shell En­er­gy Sta­di­um in Hous­ton, Texas, USA.

This share of the points puts T&T in a must-win en­counter when they face Sau­di Ara­bia in their last match on Sun­day.

Math­e­mat­i­cal­ly, though, is that a win for ei­ther the USA or Sau­di Ara­bia could clear a path for the So­ca War­riors' en­try in­to the quar­ter­fi­nals, de­pend­ing on the re­sults of the oth­er last-round match­es.

Af­ter loss­es in their open­ing match­es, both the So­ca War­riors and Haiti need­ed to win last night to progress. The Haitians' phys­i­cal pres­ence posed dif­fi­cul­ty in the open­ing mo­ments for T&T, as they man­aged to en­joy ear­ly pos­ses­sion, though they failed to trou­ble the T&T goal.

The game's first re­al chance fell to the Haitians, strange­ly af­ter Dante Sealy was robbed of the ball on top of the T&T penal­ty area, and Duck­ens Na­zon drove with­in close dis­tance of Mar­vin Phillip's goal but hit high over the cross­bar in the 26th minute.

Coach Dwight Yorke's un­easi­ness on the touch­line then turned to smiles in the 36th minute when the Haitians were re­duced to 10 men. Levi Gar­cia was sent on his way from a Daniel Phillips through ball in the cen­tre of the park. But as he ap­peared well on his way to goal, de­fend­er Jean-Kevin Du­verne took him down with a slid­ing tack­le that im­me­di­ate­ly forced ref­er­ee Is­mael Corne­jo to is­sue a red card.

How­ev­er, T&T's joy al­most turned to tears a minute lat­er. This time, Hait­ian Strik­er Ruben Prov­i­dence sprung the T&T off­side trap from a long ball, but de­fend­er Shel­don Bateau's use of his hands ap­peared to have sent Prov­i­dence to the ground. Ref­er­ee Corne­jo im­me­di­ate­ly point­ed to the penal­ty spot but lat­er re­versed his de­ci­sion up­on re­view­ing the re­plays.

The game was 48th min­utes old when the Haitians grabbed the open­er soon af­ter the break. Speedy strik­er Don Louicius dragged An­dre Ray­mond down the right flank be­fore his cen­tre was turned in­to goal by Frantzdy Pier­rot.

The stocky Hait­ian had breathed a sigh of re­lief af­ter his goal in the first half was dis­al­lowed for off­side.

Lat­er, they swung in­to a po­si­tion of as­cen­dan­cy, as they en­joyed a short pe­ri­od of dom­i­nance as they dou­bled their ef­forts on the T&T de­fence. Though the T&T at­tacks came in spurts, sub­sti­tute strik­er Nathaniel James was of­fered an equal­is­ing at­tempt af­ter Phillip picked him out un­marked in the Hait­ian penal­ty area with a lift­ed ball, but with the goal at his mer­cy, James could not di­rect his shot on tar­get in the 54th minute.

Nine min­utes lat­er, Ray­mond used his speed to telling ef­fect down the left flank, but his cen­tre to Re­al Gill went ag­o­nis­ing­ly wide, as the diminu­tive T&T strik­er could not con­nect on the de­liv­ery in the 63rd minute.

T&T may feel they re­al­ly should have scored in the 65th minute when winger Tyrese Spicer was picked out deep in the Hait­ian de­fence, but un­der pres­sure from the Hait­ian de­fend­ers, Spicer's at­tempt crashed off the up­right be­fore be­ing cleared.

T&T was lat­er re­ward­ed for its per­sis­tence in the 67th minute. Moli­no, who was not pre­ferred for the start­ing po­si­tion by Yorke, then de­liv­ered a lift­ed ball from a free kick for lanky de­fend­er Justin Gar­cia to head home for the equalis­er.

Both teams at­tacked each oth­er in search of the win­ner, and it al­most fell to the Haitians, who were sent to the penal­ty spot when Ray­mond swept the legs from un­der Wilguens Pau­g­in in the 83rd minute. How­ev­er, a ner­vous Mondy Prunier hacked the ball over the cross to af­ford the War­riors a life­line.

Teams

T&T : 1 Mar­vin Phillip (GK), 4 Shel­don Bateau, 5 Justin Gar­cia, 6 An­dre Ray­mond, 8 Daniel Phillips, 9 Nathaniel James, 11 Levi Gar­cia, 13 Tyrese Spicer, 15 Dante Seaoly, 17 Rio Car­dines, 18 An­dre Ram­per­sad

Subs: 21 Jabari St Hillaire (GK), 22 Den­zil Smith, 2 Dar­nell Hospedales, 7 Stef­fen Yeates, 10 Kevin Moli­no, 12 Isa­iah Lea­cock, 16 Alvin Jones, 19 Ajani For­tune, 20 Re­al Gill, 23 Noah Pow­der, 25 Kai­him Thomas, 26 Isa­iah Lee.

HAITI: 1 John­ny Placide (GK- Cpt), 2 Car­lens Ar­cus, 4 Ri­car­do Arde, 8 Mar­tin Ex­pe­ri­ence, 9 Duck­ens Na­zon, 10 Don Lu­uicius, 14 Lev­er­ton Pierre, 17 Dan­ley Jean, 18 Ruben Prov­i­dence, 20 Frantzdy Pier­rot, 22 Jean-Kevin Du­verne.

Subs: 12 Alexan­dre Pierre, 23 Garis­sone In­no­cent, 5 Carl Sainte, 6 Gar­ven-michee Me­tusala, 11 Dany Jean, 13 Markhus Lacroix, 15 Mikael Can­tave, 16 Mondy Prunier, 19 Bel­mar Joseph, 21 Christo­pher At­tys, 24 Wilguens Pau­gain, 25 Teo James Michel.