— The USL side Atlanta United 2 actually plays their home games in Lawrenceville, Ga., the suburb where publisher Larry Flynt was shot and paralyzed by a sniper in 1978 during an obscenity trial.

Friday night, Atlanta United 2 visited a soccer obscenity upon WakeMed Soccer Park, allowing two goals in the first and second halves en route to a 4-0 rout by North Carolina FC.

“It’s a great result and great performance: four goals, clean sheet, great response to [the loss at] Cincinnati,” said NCFC manager Colin Clarke. “It’s been a long, tough, hard seven days, with three games and travel. I thought we were outstanding and magnificent, just not the way we played and the goals, but the willingness to do that work that needed to be done on tired legs.”

“We’re disappointed overall in our performance,” said Atlanta United 2 manager Scott Donnelly. “NCFC was sharp and we weren’t sharp enough. A slow start meant an early goal, and it became more difficult and an uphill battle.”

Atlanta United 2 came into Friday’s match having surrendered 21 goals this season, the most in the USL’s Eastern Conference. North Carolina FC leapt on that opportunity in the 7th minute, when forward Donovan Ewolo headed a 50-50 ball to an unmarked Daniel Rios with an open lane to goal. Rios drove and drew defenders, then centered the ball back to Ewolo, who opened his USL account by slotting a shot beneath Atlanta goalkeeper Alex Kann for an early 1-0 lead.

Fortune continued to shine on the Dead Whales in the 21st minute, when Atlanta defender Will Crain put an errant leg onto a Steven Miller cross from off the right end line, earning an own goal and doubling the NCFC advantage heading into intermission.

North Carolina FC picked up where they left off in the 52nd minute. After midfielder Kyle Bekker banged a blast off the crossbar, Rios chested down the rebound before depositing a left-footer past Kann to make the scoreline 3-0.

The home side clipped a fourth goal in the match’s waning minutes, when Rios crossed to an onrushing Marios Lomis, who nodded the ball off his own chest and over the goal line to account for his third league goal this year and the final 4-0 margin.

While the scoreline and eyeball test proved lopsided, the rest of the stat sheet was remarkably close. Both managers said the difference between the sides boiled down to capitalizing on chances.

“We missed some key opportunities early and NCFC didn’t,” Donnelly said. “They were much better in the boxes—they were hungrier in some key moments. NCFC is a veteran team, and I think as soon as they sensed a little bit of inconsistency in our performance, they jumped all over it.”

For Clarke, the key difference was “goals.”

“We talked about how we could hurt them, because they’re a team that scores goals but they’re also a team that concedes goals,” Clarke said. “We knew that if we were good in possession and transition, we would cause them difficulty.”

The win also saw Clarke return to the 4-4-2 formation that, when deployed, has served his team well this season. After the match, Clarke still wouldn’t make any definitive statements about his preferred alignment going forward, but …

“We have some good forwards who score goals, and it’s hard to keep two on the bench and one on the field,” Clarke said. “We’ll be looking to use two up front as much as we can.”

Clarke reeled off several standout performers: D.J. Taylor, Austin da Luz, Kyle Bekker, Graham Smith, and goalkeeper Alex Tambakis, who made four saves. Daniel Rios finished the match with a goal and two assists.

“But if I had to pick one, it’d be Futty Danso,” Clarke continued. “I thought he was outstanding tonight. He cleaned things up, he put out some fires that were happening around and read the game well. He was composed and great in the air.”

Friday saw the return of longtime club mainstay Tiyi Shipalane, who re-signed with NCFC this week. However, his addition comes in the wake of a season-ending injury to Bernhard Luxbacher, who suffered a torn right ACL Tuesday against the Ocean City Nor’easters in the U.S. Open Cup.

North Carolina FC (3-2-4, 11 pts.) resumes USL play next Saturday, June 2 when it hosts Bethlehem Steel. It’ll be the second of four consecutive league matches at Sahlen’s Stadium in Cary, the sort of home cooking NCFC needs to dig itself out of the basement of the USL table.

BOX SCORE

LINEUPS

NC: Tambakis, Taylor, Danso, Harrington, Doue, da Luz (Kandziora, 61’), Bekker (Shipalane, 85’), G. Smith, Miller, Rios, Ewolo (Lomis, 75’)

ATL: Kann, Hernandez (Goslin, 81’), Crain, Kendall-Moullin, Metcalf, Wheeler-Omiunu, Carranza, Kiessiedou (Carleton, 46’), Kunga (Samuel, 61’), Gallagher, Vazquez

GOALS

NC: Ewolo, 7’ (Rios); Crain, 21’ (OG); Rios, 52’; Lomis, 90’ (Rios)

ATL: ---

CAUTIONS

NC: Bekker, 45’

ATL: Wheeler-Omiunu, 72’; Kendall-Moullin, 72’

EJECTIONS

NC: ---

ATL: ---

ATTENDANCE: 3,710