Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2011

RailHawks hope to repeat last year's playoff

Carolina down one as semifinal series shifts to WakeMed Soccer Park

WakeMed Soccer Park has been good to the Carolina RailHawks in 2011. To keep the best season in franchise history going, it'll have to be good one more time.

Carolina will come back to its home stadium Saturday at 7 p.m. to play the second half of its North American Soccer League semifinals - which is decided by total goals - against the NSC Minnesota Stars, who currently lead 1-0 after a stoppage-time goal last Saturday.

Although the nature of the goal was a punch to the gut - the RailHawks were just minutes away from coming back home with the series still even - a 1-0 lead is still a tenuous one. To hold onto it for another 90 minutes can be even harder.

The Montreal Impact found this out last year when facing the Carolina RailHawks in the semifinals of the playoffs. Carolina trailed 1-0 entering the home half of the series but won the series with a thrilling 2-0 win in the second leg.

The RailHawks, who are 11-2-1 at home this season, are hoping for a little more magic.

The Stars certainly had their mojo this year while playing at home against Carolina. In two straight trips to Minnesota, the RailHawks gave up a stoppage-time goal to lose 1-0.

But Carolina, who clinched the regular-season title with five games left but lost their last four in a row, played one of its better games of late despite the loss.

"We created some very good chances and defended reasonably well as a team," head coach Martin Rennie said. "The intensity and the actual performance was very good."

Rennie said he doesn't expect Minnesota will do anything differently in the second leg. The Stars, he said, play a tight, compact defense no matter the situation. As for his team, Rennie knows that even if they had tied 0-0, a win at home is needed to advance.

"We had to score and we had to win at home anyway," he said. "And we're very capable of doing that."

If the two sides are tied in total goals after 90 minutes on Saturday, they will play a 30-minute overtime period (with a halftime) to its completion. If the two are still tied, the series will be decided on penalty kicks.