On April 21, 2007, the Carolina RailHawks hosted the Minnesota Thunder for Carolina’s first match in club history. Kupono Low scored the RailHawks’ first goal, but an Ansu Toure second-half penalty goal resulted in a 1-1 draw.

Saturday night at WakeMed Soccer Park, née SAS Soccer Park, the RailHawks and Minnesota (now United FC) played for the 35th and final time in advance Minnesota’s entry into Major League Soccer next year. A second-half goal by Matt Fondy allowed the RailHawks to send the Loons off with a 1-0 defeat.

Over 10 seasons, Carolina and Minnesota played 35 times, with the RailHawks winning 12 games, Minnesota winning 12, and 11 draws between them.

The Loons held early control of the match, nearly scoring when a blast in the box by Danny Cruz clanged off the crossbar in the 26th minute. The momentum of the match shifted when Minnesota defender Jeb Brovsky left the match with a knee injury in the 36th minute. Upon the entry of substitute Aaron Pitchkolan, Carolina regained their form and actually held the majority of possession during the opening half.

Carolina forged ahead to stay in the 52nd minute. Matt Watson won a takeaway at midfield, then played the ball wide left to Brian Shriver. Shriver drove towards the byline before sending a cross that cleared a sliding Brent Kallman and found an onrushing Fondy for the running putaway and 1-0 game-winner. It was Fondy’s team-leading seventh goal this year, all scored since he arrived in June on a transfer from the Jacksonville Armada.

The RailHawks appeared poised to double their advantage when Minnesota’s Damion Lowe was whistled for a handball penalty in the 72nd minute. However, Nazmi Albadawi, who hadn’t taken a penalty all year, skied his PK to keep the final scoreline at 1-0.

After the match, Minnesota manager Carl Craig bemoaned his team’s unexplained regression midway through the opening stanza.

“The first 15-20 minutes were outstanding, even though we didn’t put the ball in the net,” Craig said. “Had we continued in that vein, we would have won the game comfortably … Someone hit some kind of strange button, and it went [splat sound]. We seemed to implode.”

Even as the RailHawks and their fans celebrated together on the WakeMed Stadium pitch with post-match fireworks, Carolina’s ebullience was tempered by the ghost of their home loss to Rayo OKC last week. Rayo OKC’s 2-0 win tonight over the Fort Lauderdale Strikers, which went final sometime around the 80th minute in Cary, eliminated the RailHawks from the NASL playoff chase. Discounting any unknowable butterfly effect, if Carolina had defeated Rayo OKC at home last week, the RailHawks would be in fourth place in the league table and two points clear of Minnesota United entering the final weekend of regular season play.

It’s the fourth consecutive season the RailHawks haven’t qualified for postseason play, following four straight years (2009-2012) in which they did.

After the match, Clarke spoke prospectively, already looking forward to next year. With club president Curt Johnson standing mute in the rear of the media room, that begged the question of whether the gaffer himself would return.

“I’d love to be back,” Clarke said. “I’m enjoying what I’m doing. The club’s going places. We’ve had our past, but now everything’s positive and moving forward, and I certainly want to be part of that. I certainly hope to be back.”

Indeed, Saturday’s attendance of 8,086 is a regular season club record. It raises the 2016 average game attendance to 5,058, an 11 percent increase from last year.

Coincidentally, 2007 was also the first and last time the RailHawks finished a regular season on the road. The second time will be next Saturday when Carolina visits Puerto Rico FC to complete their 2016 NASL campaign.

The RailHawks can still finish anywhere between fifth and ninth in the league standings, depending on the outcomes of next weekend’s final matches. In the meantime, Carolina’s players and coaches can only contemplate the what-ifs.

“It’s bittersweet,” Clarke said. “It’s our best performance of the year, in a lot of ways, against a very good team. It’s the best crowd of the year. Just a great night, and you’d like to score a few more goals.

“When you sit back and go through it, that’s probably what’s cost us here at home. We’ve had opportunities in games you felt we should have won and chances we didn’t take. Right now, that’s cost us. But for this game, the boys were superb from the first whistle, and some performances were very, very good.”

“There are a lot of points you can look back at that we gave away that we probably shouldn't have given away,” Albadawi said, ruefully. “You think about a couple of games—I’m not going to call them out specifically—with late goals we gave up and mistakes we made. It’s a learning experience. We have to learn from it and come back strong next year.”

BOX SCORE

LINEUPS

CAR: Sylvestre, Miller, Tobin, Daly, Moses, Shipalane (Ceballos, 87’), Watson, Albadawi, da Luz, Shriver (Beckie, 90 + 2’), Fondy

MNU: Ndjock, Venegas, Kallman, Lowe (Añor, 79’), Davis, Cruz (Pinho, 68’), Speas, Brovsky (Pitchkolan, 36’), Ibson, Banks, Ramirez

GOALS

CAR: Fondy, 52’ (Shriver)

MNU: ---

CAUTIONS

CAR: Albadawi, 60’; Moses, 76’

MNU: Pitchkolan, 67’

EJECTIONS

CAR: ---

MNU: ---

ATTENDANCE: 8,086