Carolina RailHawks News Release - www.carolinarailhawks.com
Sunday, July 15, 2007
CARY, NC -- The Carolina RailHawks continued their quest for the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup on Sunday night as they hosted Major League Soccer’s Chicago Fire and came away with a 1-0 victory to move onto the Quarterfinals.
The Fire are the defending US Open Cup champions and they entered the tournament in this round with seven other MLS teams. The Carolina RailHawks were able to finally capitalize on the many scoring chances with a game winning goal by McColm Cephas in the 56th minute. John O’Hara recorded his second shutout against a Major League Soccer team in as many games.
“It’s great to play and get the win,” said O’Hara. “I think I might be the curse if the MLS teams but nonetheless it was great to bring home a positive result.”
The Carolina RailHawks started very strong with early scoring chances by McColm Cephas and Anthony Maher, both headers in the first few minutes of the game ended out of play for goal kicks. Chicago responded with Chad Barrett serving a ball out of the box to Bakari Soumare who took a blazing shot that ended up high above the bar in the 10th minute.
The first half continued back and forth with both teams attacking to get an early tally but none of the two sides was able to finish. The game got a little more physical towards the end of the half as the referee started doling out a few yellow cards to both teams trying to calm the run of play down. The sides retired to a 0-0 score at the half.
Chicago Fire head coach Juan Carlos Osorio started the second half by inserting midfielder Brian Plotkin for Justin Mapp whose performance was opaque at best. The change really didn’t matter much if not for injecting a little bit of energy into the legs of the Fire for a few minutes. The RailHawks, however, relentlessly continued to search for the goal which finally came in the 56th minute with a textbook shot by McColm Cephas from a deflection by Chicago Fire defender CJ Brown which found the back of the net.
“It was great to finally score,” said Cephas. “I’ve had some tough times lately but I knew it would come soon. It was particularly good for me that the goal came in such an important match.”
The Chicago Fire tried to come back but the RailHawks defense didn’t really give many chances to the MLS side. Chicago’s only corner kick came in the 73rd minute but was easily cleared by a Kupono Low header. Carolina continued to press looking for a goal to seal the deal but the final score would stay 1-0 for Carolina as they now advance to the quarterfinals of the tournament in pursuit of the coveted trophy. The RailHawks will face the Richmond Kickers of USL-2 on Tuesday, August 7th at SAS Soccer Park in Cary.
“We knew what kind of team we would find here,” said Chicago head coach Juan Carlos Osorio in his second match with Chicago. “The RailHawks are a very hard team to play against and they’re good and efficient. They continued to work us throughout the evening. We had some chances in the early part of the second half and had we capitalized it would have been a different match.”
“We did everything the right way tonight,” said Carolina head coach Scott Schweitzer. “We played the full ninety minutes and never lost focus. We did what we had to do to win and that’s what I expect day in and day out.”
Next the Carolina RailHawks travel to Miami and Puerto Rico for two important league matches. They return home on July 25th to face Club Deportivo Cruz Azul of Mexican Primera Division in an exhibition match sure to become a classic summer match.
