Carolina RailHawks News Release - www.carolinarailhawks.com
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
CARY, NC -- The Carolina RailHawks continued their quest for the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup on Tuesday night as they faced Bavarian SC from Milwaukee in the second round of the tournament.
Over 3,000 fans waited patiently for a thunderstorm to pass as the game got delayed approximately one hour. The final score was 4–0 for the Carolina RailHawks with goals by Connally Edozien, Anthony Maher (2) and Marcio Leite.
The RailHawks immediately controlled the pace with a full pitch press that continued for the firs half hour. Attempts by Edozien and Maher always aided by the ubiquitous Jonny Steele all end out or high. The first real dangerous attempt on goal for Bavarian SC came in the 34th minute when a shot blasted by Dale Weiler was deflected by Chris McClellan into a corner kick.
The first tally came in the 37th minute when Anthony Maher passed the ball on to Connally Edozien. Edozien proceeded to beat all his defenders and the goalkeeper to send the ball in the back of the net. The RailHawks continued to attack and Anthony Maher picked up a ball chested down to him by Edozien in the 45th minute and finally scored his first goal for the Franchise.
“It was great to finally break the seal,” said Maher. “Things went well tonight and as a forward scoring goals is what you want to do. I hope that there will be more to come.”
The 2nd half started pretty much in the same way with the RailHawks pushing the ball forward and Bavarian hiding behind the ball. In the 57th minute Connally Edozien picks up a ball from Steele and shots it towards Bavarian goalkeeper Grant Fernstrum. The ball bounces off him towards Anthony Maher who heads it in for his second tally of the evening. Maher had the chance to score again later on but selflessly handed the ball to a deserving Jonny Steele who blasted it towards Fernstrum but ended in a corner kick.
“We’re a family,” Maher said. “When we are tight like this you want to share the wealth with your teammates. Jonny deserved the chance and I gave it to him.”
In the 79th minute another RailHawk scored his first goal in the franchise when Marcio Leite, a late sub for Connally Edozien collected a ball and chipped it beautifully over Fernstrum to fix the score at 4 – 0
“Nothing went wrong tonight” said Carolina head coach Scott Schweitzer, “It’s hard to play against a team that sits eleven guys in their half. We had to find a different way to break them down and playing through the middle seemed to be the right thing to do. Once we got our goals in the field opened up and we were able to control the game.”
The Carolina RailHawks will now face the Chicago Fire on Sunday July 15th at SAS Soccer Park in Cary in the third round of the US Open Cup. Should Carolina advance to the fourth round they are poised to face the winner between the Richmond Kickers and the Los Angeles Galaxy. The RailHawks return to USL-1 league play on Tuesday, July 3rd as they host the current USL-1 champions, the Vancouver Whitecaps.
