After his post-match comments to his team, Carolina RailHawks coach Scott Scwheitzer stood near midfield Friday, his arms folded across his chest, seething at what the SAS Soccer Park scoreboard read: Sounders 1, RailHawks 0.

Carolina (3-3-5, 14 points) fell to visiting Seattle (5-4-4, 19 points) by a goal for the second time in three weeks, snapping the RailHawks’ home unbeaten streak at six matches and dropping the side into a four-way tie for sixth place in the USL-1 table.

Failing to capture three points at home for the fifth time in six matches was hard enough to swallow, but the unfocused way in which Carolina gave those points away Friday was the root of the issue for Schweitzer.

“We were not good,” he said. “We were not good in the back. That’s the first time I’ve seen us lose an aerial battle in the back. We kept going to things that weren’t working. We asked them to attack on the flanks, not go towards the middle but go wide. Push it by the guy and go wide. They couldn’t stay with our speed. We continued to go inside, and they were set up defensively.

“[The Sounders] were here to play for a tie and maybe get a goal and it worked to perfection for them. And we allowed it to work.”

Seattle forward Sebastien Le Toux caused problems for Carolina all night. Le Toux scored Friday’s only goal in the 35th minute. He did the same in the Sounders’ 1-0 win in Seattle on May 23.

Though he only put one in the net, Le Toux had a handful of other chances throughout the match that he should have finished with ease. Carolina defenders had trouble matching his speed, but Schweitzer said Le Toux was so dangerous because the RailHawks failed to control his teammates.

“He was running at us and we were chasing him down. He’s a fast, technically sound player,” Schweitzer said. “That was our plan — to stop the players around him, make it our game and control the tempo. And we didn’t.”

Friday’s match marked the third time in five outings Carolina was shut out. Their seven goals scored are tied for the league low, but the RailHawks have an extra 180 minutes of futility over the California Victory, who also have found the net just seven times.

The RailHawks’ chances were plenty on Friday, but their touch around the goal was way off.

“We’re always going to get shots with the way we attack,” said Carolina midfielder Kupono Low. “It’s just a matter of finishing. We had this problem a few weeks ago. After the Chivas game, we started scoring and getting in the groove. We just didn’t have it tonight.”

Connally Edozien, who’d scored five goals in Carolina’s previous five games, had a great chance in the first minute, but Seattle goalkeeper Chris Eylander (seven saves) dove to his left to deny Edozien.

Edozien had another strong chance in the 24th minute, but Eylander punched his header over the frame.

The action went the other way immediately, and Le Toux had a pair of chances. In the 26th minute, Kevin Sakuda served a ball over the top. The RailHawks tried to catch Le Toux with an offside trap, but the Seattle forward beat it and had a breakaway. But he squandered the chance by firing the ball right at Carolina goalkeeper Chris McClellan.

But Le Toux broke through in the 35th minute.

Carolina defender David Stokes tried to switch fields, but he played a horrendous ball from the back outside. Seattle’s Danny Jackson picked it off and played it ahead to Le Toux, who again beat the offside trap, pulled McClellan off his line and popped the ball into the net.

“They capitalized on one opportunity, and that was the difference,” Stokes said.

By the second half, Carolina simply couldn’t get any pressure on Seattle’s defense because their attack went directly up the middle. But the Sounders were packed in to protect their one-goal lead, and the RailHawks didn’t have a decent look over the final 45 minutes.

Carolina plays its fourth straight home match this Saturday, when it takes on Charleston at 7:30 p.m. It’s not time to push the panic button, but the RailHawks would feel better about their place in the table if they salvage three points against the Battery (4-4-3, 15 points). In their last three home games, Carolina has earned just two points.

More troubling as of late, though, is the RailHawks’ inability to play a full 90 minutes. They’ve displayed a knack for taking off stretches of recent matches, a trend that no one wants to see continue.

“We haven’t put in a solid 90 minutes,” said Carolina defender and captain Frankie Sanfilippo. “We have stretches where we go for 20, 25 minutes and then we slack off. We have to come for 90 minutes and give 110 percent each game.”

Otherwise, the scoreboard’s going to continue to read in the opponents’ favor.