CARY — The Carolina RailHawks have been assured of a postseason berth for several weeks, but after Friday’s 2-0 win over the Montreal Impact, one final detail was determined – first round action be against the Vancouver Whitecaps.

Midfielder Daniel Paladini scored off a penalty kick and Brian Plotkin buried a feed from recent signee Matt Delicâte late in the second half to finish out the regular season for the RailHawks, as they ended the year 15-7-7. The first leg of the first round will be played at Vancouver on Thursday before coming to WakeMed Soccer Park on Sunday at 5 p.m.

With that, the season has fulfilled the promises coach Martin Rennie and his team have made all season long. Rennie said though regular season records will soon become irrelevant, he is proud his squad has made it this far.

“It was our goal. We started on this at the beginning,” Rennie said. “It feels like yesterday, but it was a long time ago. You can’t take it for granted – we really did have a good regular season.”

However, it was not all positive news for the Railhawks – forward Matt Watson took the ball up the field and was sideswiped by an attempted tackle. Watson caught his ankle and was sent sprawling. After medical evaluation, it appears Watson will sit out the postseason with a broken fibula.

Though, at the time, he didn’t know the severity of Watson’s injury, Plotkin believes the Railhawks have the depth to make up for the loss.

“It hurts,” Plotkin said. “But Martin all along has pushed the strength of the team and I think that will show now as we go into the playoffs. Hopefully [Watson] will be all right and he’ll be able to get back in, but going forward now you can only deal with the guys that are on the field.”

John Cunliffe took over for Watson and the game continued. Referees waved off an apparent goal from Budnyy and Richardson in the 44th minute because Budnyy drifted offside and the game went into half time scoreless.

John Gilkerson sprang Budnyy for a breakout in the 57th minute but he was hauled down from behind by the Impact’s Stefano Pesoli, who received a match penalty.

“It fell right at my foot and I was finally able to hold myself from going offside,” Budnyy said. “I was about to shoot and he fell on me from behind. I couldn’t even shoot. That was a PK 100 percent.”

Paladini sent the resulting penalty shot whistling past Montreal goalkeeper Matt Jordan to make the game 1-0. Just as time was about to expire, Plotkin added one of his own.

Plotkin said the referees kept the game from getting out of hand late and the game ended with the Railhawks’ league-leading and team-record 17th shutout. Last season, there were only five shutouts.

Budnyy said it was important for his team to maintain good spirits heading into a series against the Whitecaps, a team the RailHawks went 1-0-2 against in the regular season.