Just in: The Carolina RailHawks have signed Matt Bobo, who was first-team USL defender in 2009 with the Charleston Battery. The arrival of the central defender ensures a strong partner for RailHawks captain and All-League second-teamer Mark Schulte.
The Charleston Battery elected to stay out of this winter’s dispute over the future of second-division soccer by self-relegating to USL-2. One has to wonder whether the Battery’s seclusion in a lower-revenue, six-team league is related to the fact that two of its highest-profile players have departed the club this week: Bobo and former RailHawk back Frankie Sanfilippo, who returned to his original club, the D2 Rochester Rhinos, yesterday, after playing only one year of what was reportedly a multiyear contract.
It wasn’t going to be easy to fly down to Puerto Rico and extract a point, and it didn’t happen.
We followed this one on Twitter (while we watched Zidane with a bunch of Dukies) and caught the highlights on USLLive.com: After 74 scoreless minutes, the Islanders’ Christian Arrieta converted a PK after a foul by RailHawks keeper Caleb Patterson-Sewell. (Arrieta’s goal was his 10th of the season, one off the league lead. He’s also second in the league with 24 points. Pretty phenomenal considering that he’s a right back.) A few minutes later, ex-RailHawk Jonathan Steele sent a corner kick to the forehead of defender John Krause for the clincher. The game saw 12 shots, five for the RailHawks.
It brings the RailHawks’ losing streak to two, only the second time this season they’ve lost two league games in a row. (In a sign of what a bummer week it’s been, no RailHawk made the team of the week.)
The likely result of the failure to get a point in Puerto Rico is a second-place finish for the Islanders and a third-place finish for the RailHawks. The Islanders have 50 points with three games to play; the RailHawks have 49 with two left.
Here’s how the standings shake out, as of this afternoon.
Points
Games
Portland
55
27
Puerto Rico
50
27
Carolina
49
28
Charleston
46
27
Rochester
41
28
Montreal
39
27
Vancouver
36
27
For the RailHawks to regain second place, they’ll probably have to take six points from their two remaining games—both at home, one against Puerto Rico. Meanwhile, the Islanders will not only have to lose the final RailHawks fixture, they’ll have to fail to beat either Minnesota or Miami. (Of course, Puerto Rico could simply lose or draw all three of their remaining games—which are all on the road—but that’s unlikely to occur. Portland could lose its last three games and finish in a tie with Carolina, too.)
Second place isn’t impossible, but third is the more likely outcome—unless Charleston collects nine points from its final three games (against Miami, Rochester and Minnesota). In this case, the RailHawks could finish in a tie for third with the Battery, and presumably be seeded fourth on the basis of their performance this season against Charleston.
Two big games are coming up. Clear your schedule for Saturday, Sept. 12 and Friday, Sept. 18. The RailHawks need the 12th man in a big way as first the Islanders, then the Montreal Impact come to town.
Miami FC visits WakeMed Soccer Park this afternoon at 2 p.m. The temperature is forecast to be 91 degrees at kickoff, and Miami will be no pushover. This month, they’ve begun a march out of the bottom of the table: They’ve won two games, drawn two and lost just once. One of their draws was against the undefeated Portland Timbers (although the Timbers returned two days later to hammer the Blues 3-0).
The RailHawks need to win today to salvage the weekend and stay near the top of the table. If they lose, they will be five points off the pace set by Portland, with each having played 18 games. Puerto Rico and Charleston are tied with Portland with 35 points apiece, but they’ve played 22 and 20 games, respectively.
Friday night was not so hot for the ’Hawks as the Charleston Battery fired two artillery shots past Eric Reed in the first half, and held on for a 2-1 victory. Luke Kreamalmeyer scored in the 87th off a long free kick from Kupono Low Daniel Paladini. *
Particularly worrisome was an apparent reversion to the defensive form of June: Both Battery goals originated as corner kicks.
Aside from failing to pick up any points (and handing three more to a injury- and suspension-plagued, but first-place Charleston side), the RailHawks saw midfield stalwarts Amir Lowery and Daniel Paladini each pick up their fifth yellow cards of the season, meaning that they will have to serve a one-game suspension. According to Tim Candon, the suspension will likely be served next Saturday, a home game against cellar-dwelling Austin.
In other USL news this weekend:
USL-2 Wilmington clinched a playoff berth with a 2-1 victory over the Harrisburg City Islanders, thanks to the help of goalkeeper and former RailHawk Chris McClellan, who had six saves.
How good are the Portland Timbers? Yesterday they played Burnley FC, newly promoted to the English Premier League, to a 2-2 draw. Burnley visited WakeMed Soccer Park a year ago and lost 2-1 to the RailHawks’ U-23 PDL team (which they don’t maintain anymore). Here’s a recent Times story (h/t Tim Candon) on the vastly different West Coast preseason tours being undertaken by Burnley and Chelsea.
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.
Gregory Richardson, seen July 3 against the Wilmington Hammerheads. (photo by Rich Bostwick)
Today, the RailHawks made an announcement that those who attended the July 3 friendly against Wilmington must have eagerly anticipated: The signing of Guyanese forward Gregory Richardson. I was (happily) at the beach so I missed what appears to have been an exciting debut by the trialist, who assisted Kupono Low on a goal in the first half of the 3-0 win.
Most intriguing is the fact that Richardson played last season for the celebratedJoePublic FC of Trinidad & Tobago, and became famous in soccer circles for scoring five goals in four games in the 2008-09 CONCACAF Champions League, including a hat trick against the New England Revolution.
His newfound notoriety helped him get a look in the MLS, first with Toronto FC and then with the Colorado Rapids. He didn’t find his footing with either club, finally being waived June 26.
On the RailHawks’ official blog, team reporter Tim Candon confides that coach Martin Rennie was so excited about Richardson that he wanted to keep his trial status as low-profile as possible until the team was able to sign him.
Obviously, the hope is that Richardson will bring a badly needed killer instinct to the final third of the field—the RailHawks’ finishing instincts have been spotty all season.
The RailHawks travel to Charleston Saturday, July 11, for a crucial showdown against the first-place Battery, who are six points ahead of the fourth-place ’Hawks.
The RailHawks’ official announcement is after the jump. Continue reading »
Gavin Glinton, in one of several opportunities inside the 18 against the Islanders. He finished with two shots in 74 minutes. (Photo by Rich Bostwick)
WAKEMED SOCCER PARK/ CARY—When the final whistle blew after five minutes of stoppage time, and the RailHawks were once again without a victory, losing 2-1 to the Puerto Rico Islanders, the normally unflappable Martin Rennie gave vent—ever so briefly—to his feelings. A water bottle on the grass felt the brunt of Rennie’s one-time professional kick, before the young coach composed himself and shook hands with Puerto Rico’s formidable coach, Colin Clarke.
June has been brutal for the RailHawks: With only one game remaining this month—a friendly against Panama on Tuesday (a substitute for what woulda/coulda/shoulda been a 3rd round US Open Cup match against the Chicago Fire—the record for the month is this: 0-2-2 in league play and 1-3-2 overall. The only victory came in the month’s first game against the USL-2 Richmond Kickers in the opening round of Open Cup play.
What’s more, the team that entered June having reeled off four consecutive victories, with an aggregate score of 7-0, and had conceded only five goals all season, gave up nine goals in all competitions in June (four were conceded to USL-2 opposition).
The RailHawks are still in third place, four points behind the Islanders, who took the league lead with the victory. However, the RailHawks have played two fewer games than Puerto Rico, one fewer than second-place Charleston and two more than fourth-place Portland. In terms of points-per-game, the top of the table looks like this:
Portland: 1.91 2.0 [updated to reflect Sunday night results, which also dropped RailHawks to fourth in the points standings]
Lots of upbeat odds and ends here as the RailHawks, after a brief respite, resume training in advance of a tough 11-day stretch that will see either four or five games.
For the second week in a row, Daniel Paladini and Kupono Low were named to the USL-1 Team of the Week. Paladini, of course, kicked another late game-winner as he establishes himself as a crucial midfield playmaker. However, for longtime RailHawks watchers, it’s especially gratifying to see the fine season Low is having. He, along with Caleb Norkus, is the team’s longest-serving player, and he carries the distinction of scoring the first goal in team history. The massive roster turnover occasioned by the ascendant Martin Rennie era seems to be paying dividends, but Low’s continued stellar work on the squad provides a vital link to the past.
I neglected to mention, in my account of Friday’s last-gasp victory over Cleveland, that the team has now recorded four shutouts in a row and have not conceded a goal in 396 minutes. Plenty of players can be credited for that achievement, not least Low for his airtight work at left back.
On the all-important table front: The RailHawks, the Charleston Battery and the Portland Timbers are the class of the league right now. The ’Hawks are three points clear of the Battery, who have a game in hand, and seven points clear of the Timbers, who have two in hand. As it happens, these two squads are the only two that have beaten the RailHawks so far this season. Portland comes to town next Thursday.
RailHawks blogger Tim Candon tells us that the main field is being re-sodded. I’m not sure I understand why it’s being done mid-season, but I hope to find out. Anyone out there have a clue? What this means is the next couple of home games will be played on Field 2. There will be seating for about 700 on that side, so you might want to bring a picnic blanket for some old school football-watching.
Finally, to keep us busy while we wait out the 11-day break between games, the RailHawks staff are encouraging fans to do a little crowing—or cawing, or whatever sound railhawks make—by voting for their favorite of the 12 Carolina goals scored thus far this season. I haven’t voted but I say Mark Schulte’s. Click here.
Amir Lowery, in the air sometime during the game's first 18 minutes, before he was shown a red card for a bad mid-air challenge. (Photo courtesy of the RailHawks)
WAKEMED SOCCER PARK/ CARY—On a night when thunder and lightning knocked out an hour of power and heavy rain unequivocally defined the term fair weather fan for several dozen families who sheepishly made their mini-vanning way home, the Charleston Battery and Carolina RailHawks huffed and banged their way through 90 minutes of football.
Carolina entered the game on top of the USL-1 table and had never lost to their Southern Derby rivals, posting a 7-0 record over the past two seasons. Keeper Caleb Patterson Sewell had not conceded a goal in his RailHawks tenure and Martin Rennie was able to field his strongest side with the exception of Josh Gardner who had picked up the flu in Portland. 4,500+ fans braved the game-time tempest and were rewarded with cool weather and eerie, ominous skies. It looked like a promising night for the home side.
In what may be a harbinger of the changing face of the RailHawks, the Charleston Battery announced today that it had signed Frankie Sanfilippo, a two-year ’Hawks veteran, to a three-year deal.
The 27-year-old defender scored one goal in 51 games for the RailHawks. Prior to his stint in Cary, he played for the Rochester Rhinos and the now-defunct Syracuse Salty Dogs.
Sanfilippo never lost to his new employer during his RailHawks tenure.
UPDATE 6:13 P.M.: In response to a request for comment, the RailHawks released this statement from president Brian Wellman:
Frankie has been a tremendous part of the RailHawks organization these past two years. He is a phenomenal leader both on and off the field and though we are sad to see him go we wish him all the best in his future at the Battery.
A light but compact crowd gathered at Bull McCabe’s in Durham on Friday night to watch the USL-1 Carolina RailHawks take on the Charleston Battery. It came as a surprise to some at the bar that such significant emotion could be generated for somthing that they did not heretofore know existed.
Yet, there it was, a handful of grown men screaming with arms raised when Matt Watson pulled the midfield lever that sent Hamed Diallo racing through to goal in the 8th minute. Continue reading »
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.
