The Carolina RailHawks enter this week having scored six goals in its previous two matches. While four of them came against an amateur team in the U.S. Open Cup, the fact that they put the ball in the net is a much-needed confidence boost at a critical time in their season.

With Tuesday’s home match against first-place Vancouver, the RailHawks will play four times in 10 days against the league’s top three times. As of Monday, Carolina (4-3-5, 17 points) was in seventh place in the USL First Division. If they’re going to make a climb up the standings, now is the time to do it.

“Every team goes through a rough spate,” said Carolina coach Scott Schweitzer. “Ours is right here in the middle of the season. We take it Vancouver first, then we’ll start to build up for the Rochester-Montreal trip. That’s the only way we can look at it.”

Vancouver (7-2-5, 26 points) was no doubt looking to avenge Carolina’s 1-0 win in British Columbia last month, a result that snapped the Whitecaps’ 16-match winning streak. Vancouver is easily USL-1’s top road team, having gone 4-1-3 away from Swanguard Stadium and outscored their opponents 10-5.

Carolina heads to second-place Rochester (6-4-6, 24 points) on Friday for what will surely be a hotly contested affair between the two franchises that have close ties. Four RailHawks used to play for the Raging Rhinos, as did Carolina coach Scott Schweitzer. And RailHawks President and General Manager Chris Economides helped found the Rochester club in the mid-1990s.

On June 8, Carolina and Rochester played to a 2-2 draw in Cary. The Rhinos are unbeaten (3-0-2) at PAETEC Park this season.

Two days later, Carolina heads to Montreal to face the third-place Impact (6-3-5, 23 points) for the first time. Like Carolina, Montreal doesn’t score much (13 goals in 12 games) and doesn’t allow their opponents a whole lot either (nine goals in 12 games).

Carolina comes back to Cary and will play the Impact at SAS Soccer Park for the second time in five days on July 13.

The RailHawks will then play MLS’ Chicago Fire on July 15 at SAS Soccer Park in the third round of the Open Cup.

“The next two weeks are definitely big for us,” said Carolina captain Frankie Sanfilippo. “If we get through and do well, a lot of teams are going to be watching for us.”

In order to get through with the most favorable results, Carolina will have to find the net more frequently. The RailHawks’ nine goals scored place them 11th in the 12-team USL First Division. To their credit, their lack of scoring does not indicate a lack of effort. They’ve outshot their opponent eight times in 12 games. For the season, they’ve outshot the opposition 129-95.

But they’ve only outscored their USL-1 opponents 9-8.

This suggests the RailHawks don’t need to make any adjustments, they simply need to be more composed when a goal-scoring opportunity presents itself. In USL-1 play, Carolina scores one goal for every 14.3 shots, translating into an unflattering success rate of 6.9 percent.

The two goals against Charleston on June 23 and four against Bavarian SC in the Open Cup on June 26 might signal the attack is finding its form.

“As a forward, scoring goals is a great thing mentally,” said Anthony Maher, who scored twice against Bavarian. “When you’re out on the field, you feel sharp; you feel confident and it allows us to do what we do best. Scoring a couple goals these last couple games is going to allow us to play with confidence.”

Poll position

As of Monday, Maher was the leading vote getter for the top performance in the second round of the U.S. Open Cup. Maher had received 41.78 percent of the vote at usopencup.com. The Harrisburg City Islanders defense was in second place with 17.12 percent of the vote.

Maher scored two goals and had an assist in the RailHawks’ 4-0 win against Bavarian SC at SAS Soccer Park on June 26.

“There’s a lot of Carolina RailHawks fans out there,” Maher said. “We play good soccer. We’ve got a great stadium, great fan base and any RailHawk guy up there, they’ll give them a lot of votes. Unless they’re all feeling bad for me because I’ve missed a lot of opportunities this season.”

Beckham to Cary:

Cary could get its very own slice of Beckhammania at the beginning of August.

David Beckham, the English midfielder who just helped Real Madrid win Spain’s La Liga, is set to join Major League Soccer’s L.A. Galaxy later this summer.

It’s possible the Galaxy could make their way, with Beckham in tow, to Cary to face the RailHawks in the U.S. Open Cup quarterfinals.

If Carolina beats Chicago on July 15, and the Galaxy beat the Richmond Kickers on July 10, then Carolina and the Galaxy will face each other.

The quarterfinals are scheduled for Aug. 7. On Monday, U.S. Soccer, which oversees the Open Cup, announced if the the winner of the RailHawks-Fire match will host the Galaxy-Kickers winner.