The RailHawks' bruising captain Mark Schulte played 2,500 minutes in 28 league games, leading one of the the league's two best defenses. (photo by Rich Bostwick)
Mark Schulte, the RailHawks’ workhorse of a center back and team captain, was named to the all-USL-1 second team today.
Schulte, who was a two-time defender of the year in the USL-2 while playing under coach Martin Rennie at Cleveland—before both decamped for Cary—led a defense that conceded only 19 goals, good for best in the league along with first-place Portland.
Here’s the USL-1 First Division Second Team:
GK: Bill Gaudette (Puerto Rico Islanders)
D: Stephen deRoux (Montreal Impact)
D: Cameron Knowles (Portland Timbers)
D: John Krause (Puerto Rico Islanders)
D: Mark Schulte (Carolina RailHawks)
M: Martin Nash (Vancouver Whitecaps)
M: Lawrence Olum (Minnesota Thunder)
M: Jonathan Steele (Puerto Rico Islanders)
M: David Testo (Montreal Impact)
F: Marlon James (Vancouver Whitecaps)
F: Eddie Johnson (Austin Aztex)
Tomorrow, the first-teamers will be named. Will any RailHawks make it? Let’s look at the field:
Goalkeeper: We meekly pointed out a couple weeks ago that the RailHawks’ tandem of Eric Reed and Caleb Patterson-Sewell combined for a league-leading 17 shutouts. Meanwhile, a USL tip sheet of sorts didn’t even include them, favoring Gaudette, Charleston’s Dusty Hudock and Portland’s Steve Cronin. However, we’re going to predict an upset here: Caleb Patterson-Sewell is ranked third in the league with 10 clean sheets despite playing only 15 games, and he’s second in the league with a .533 goals-against average.It’s true that Hudock has 12 shutouts and a staggering .279 GAA in only 18 games of an injury-shortened season, but Patterson-Sewell might get a boost as a new, young face—he’s 22, while Hudock is a 37-year-old veteran and the holder of many prior awards.
Defender: The locks are Puerto Rico’s Cristian Arrieta, but for his offense—10 goals—and Portland’s David Hayes, for leading the league’s other top defense. Who gets the third spot? It’s got to be someone from Charleston, the third side that decisively out-defended the rest of the league along with Portland and Carolina. It should be Frankie Sanfilippo or Matt Bobo. What about the fourth spot? We think it should be Carolina’s Jeremy Tolleson, voted defensive player of the year on the league’s co-best defensive side.
Midfielder: The locks are Ricardo Sanchez (Minnesota) and Ryan Pore (Portland). Given that there are three shoo-ins at forward, and assuming that this All-League team will be restricted to 11 players, we’re going to guess that they’ll settle on a 4-3-3 formation. So, one more midfielder in a league full of good ones. We think it’s going to be Carolina’s Gregory Richardson. Why? He’s ranked 12th in the league in points, despite playing only 12 games; furthermore, the only two true midfielders ahead of him in points are Sanchez and Pore. Is Richardson really a midfielder? Well, in Martin Rennie’s 4-5-1 he is.
Forward: There are three that have a strong claim, and none are RailHawks: Eleven-goal scorers Mandjou Keita (Portland) and Johnny Menyongar (Rochester), and 12-goal scorer Charles Gbeke (Vancouver).
Player of the Year: Keita. With 29 points from 11 goals and seven assists, he led the league, and the league’s best team.
Coach of the Year: Portland’s Gavin Wilkinson. After finishing in last place last year, he presided over an overhaul and led the Timbers to a dominating run to first place. Carolina’s Rennie is the other obvious candidate, rebuilding the RailHawks and finishing second in his first season in the league, but this is Wilkinson’s year.
Tune in tomorrow for the announcement of the real USL First Division First Team and other awards.
And congratulations to Mark Schulte, a real warrior.
Gregory Richardson made his RailHawks debut against the Whitecaps in July, scoring a goal that was later ruled to be an own goal. (photo by Rich Bostwick)
It’s Thursday, Sept. 24, and the RailHawks playoff run begins tonight in Vancouver. Tune in at 10:30 p.m. to www.usllive.com for the Webcast, and/or follow the tweets from the RailHawks’ Tim Candon @RailHawksFC. I published a short print preview in the Indythis week (with a great picture of Gregory Richardson during his dominating first-half performance against Puerto Rico).
We also heard coach Martin Rennie on 850 the Buzz yesterday. While it was great to hear the RailHawks featured on a local AM sports chat show, the quality of the interview was a little discouraging.
The host, David Glenn, averred that he’d been attending games and even mentioned that he himself is a coach of his kid’s U-7 team. Unfortunately, he didn’t ask Rennie a single tactical question, nor were any RailHawks players’ names mentioned in the interview.
There was, however, a question about how Rennie’s American wife, Amy, liked living in Scotland, but no question about the experience and quality Scottish Premier League veteran Greg Shields has brought to the back line. (Shields, by the way, was named to the 24th and final USL-1 team of the week and, remarkably, he’s the 18th RailHawk so honored this season.)
After a discussion of soccer’s potential for growth in America and an amusing recounting of Rennie’s encounter with a water bottle in Montreal, Glenn inquired about the family friendliness of WakeMed Soccer Park. Rennie dutifully enumerated all of the children’s activities available, along with the half-time shows and the promotional games. It was as if he was being asked to justify a night out to something intrinsically uninteresting—a soccer game.
Questions about Matthew Delicâte’s subbing (or Matthew Watson’s broken leg)? Nope. Questions about Rennie’s strategy in a two-leg playoff? Nope. Questions about matching up with Vancouver’s Charles Gbeke and Marlon James? Nope. Questions about the difficulty the RailHawks have in scoring on the road (more on that below)? Nada.
The whole interview was quite pleasant, and Glenn was genuinely enthusiastic and not condescending. I’m sure the RailHawks are happy to have the radio exposure, but we await more mature, sophisticated soccer coverage from the area’s broadcast sports media. Rennie himself said on the program that increased media interest is key to soccer’s growth in America–and he told the Indy’s Chris Gaffney as much back in March: “To tell the truth, I hope that the press becomes critical here, because that means they’re interested.”
In our continuing effort to, ahem, do just that, we recently took a closer look at the RailHawks’ road record against the six other teams in the playoffs. Although the RailHawks’ overall road record is a strong 5-5-5, for 20 points in 15 games, the team has had more difficulty against the playoff teams. This is to be expected, of course, but we thought we’d look at the numbers. Continue reading »
Just in from the USL home office: Caleb Norkus and Sallieu Bundu have spots on Week 14’s team of the week for their performances in the RailHawks’ 1-0 victory over the Charleston Battery on Saturday.
Among the contributions of Norkus, who started the game at right back: He drew a crucial foul from the Battery’s Randi Patterson, who kicked him in the head. Amazingly, Patterson was sent off, and minutes later, the RailHawks exploited the man-deficit with a goal from Bundu, off an assist from Josh Gardner.
The league’s player of the week was Ricardo Sanchez of the cellar-dwelling Minnesota Thunder, who annihilated the Montreal Impact 3-0. That game also produced the weekend’s most notorious low-light.
This continues an unfortunate trend for Canadian football teams (maybe it’s the universal health care!). Last month, the Vancouver Whitecaps’ Wesley Charles and Charles Gbeke also got into an on-field fracas, this time after the two of them muffed a scoring opportunity. Here’s the video (scroll ahead to 7:35).
Guess who the RailHawks play this Friday night, at home and on national television (Fox Soccer Channel, that is)? The boys from Vancouver. Kickoff is 8 p.m.
Kyle on "UNC holds off pesky NCCU with big second half, awaits selection committee": Mike Potter does Triangle sports fans a wonderful service by providing a unique perspective of events that may not otherwise receive media coverage. Thanks Mike for all you have done and continue to do in your outstanding career as a journalist and an ambassador for the Triangle.
caniacgirl on "Peters and pipes pickpocket a peck of prickly Penguins": I absolutely love the headline! Games like this one definitely reignite the little bit of playoff hope I have left in me. It should be an interesting few weeks that's for sure.
Greg Nccu Student on "Miller leads NCCU to 11th victory": There are a lot of Rumors on Campus about Joanna Miller leaving NCCU next year. Please Coach Robinson, We need to keep this player from gong to another College.
