CARY – In the waning moments of Carolina’s playoff match Friday, the club’s public address announcer reminded fans that 2008 season tickets were on sale now.

He was mum on the availablity of 2007 playoff tickets.

That’s because the RailHawks face a tall task in order to play another match this year at SAS Soccer Park.

Carolina suffered a 2-0 defeat to Seattle Friday in the first leg of their USL First Division quarterfinal, which means Carolina must beat the Sounders by at least three goals in Sunday’s second leg in order to keep their inaugural season alive.

Carolina coach Scott Schweitzer said his team is not going to the Emerald City with the mindset it must score three goals in 90 minutes, though.

“We’re going to play 45-minute games. We’re going to try to win the first 45 by one goal. We’re going to try and win the second 45 by one,” Schweitzer said. “Then goals are even, and we’ll take it from there. We have two 45-minute games.”

If Carolina can match Seattle on goals scored after 180 minutes, the teams would then play two 15-minute extra periods. If still tied, they would go to penalty kicks.

And that just might be the best approach, considering the RailHawks have won one USL-1 game by three (3-0 at Charleston on Aug. 14) and Seattle’s lost by two twice (3-1 against Vancouver May 12 and 2-0 at Montreal on May 20). The Sounders’ loss to the Whitecaps was also the only time they allowed three goals during the regular season.

“Obviously, it puts us in a good position and Scott needs to think about how he’s going to coach that game,” said Seattle coach Brian Schmetzer, looking ahead to Sunday’s match. “I’m not going to coach any differently. I’m going to stay the same as we did here tonight – defend well, not give anything away and pick and choose our times when we can counterattack. He’s the one that has to press on the gas.”

The RailHawks will have the pedal to the metal Sunday because of their lackluster play Friday.

Carolina played an uninspired first half. It didn’t have its first shot until the 25th-minute – a harmless Chris Carrieri volley that went well wide of the frame – and their defense was beaten a handful of times by Sebastien Le Toux, the speedy Frenchman whose goals beat Carolina in the teams’ two regular-season meetings.

“It’s a bit disappointing. It’s your home field. You want to do well on your home field, that’s what the advantage is,” said Carolina forward Connally Edozien. “I’m not sure we took advantage of that. We knew how they played and we knew what to do against them. We just didn’t get it done.”

Seattle nearly got on the board in the 10th minute. Carolina defender Caleb Norkus cleared Hugo Alcaraz-Cuellar’s header off the line to prevent the match's first goal.

It remained scoreless at halftime, but Seattle didn’t wait long to change that.

In the 48th minute, Zach Scott headed in a corner kick from Leighton O’Brien to put the Sounders up 1-0.

“It was a quick corner kick,” said Carolina goalkeeper Chris McClellan, who had four saves. “We weren’t back in our positions. The ball went to the backside of the six and it was a header. I got a nick on it, and it deflected right past Kupono [Low].”

Seattle’s Andre Schmid provided the backbreaker in the 82nd minute when he outmuscled Carolina’s Chad Dombrowski for a 50-50 ball at midfield and had a clear path to the Carolina goal. He coolly slipped the ball to the far post for the 2-0 Sounders lead.

Seattle goalkeeper Chris Eylander game up with two superb late-game saves that maintained his side’s two-goal advantage heading into the second leg.

In the 80th minute, Eylander sprawled out and somehow got his right mitt on Carolina midfielder Philip Long’s blistering crack from 20 yards. Nine minutes later, Eylander punched Kevin Jeffrey’s 25-yard blast over the crossbar.

Carolina players were visibility displeased with the result, but Schweitzer tried to reassure them that they are still alive.

“It’s not over,” Schweitzer said. “It’s nowhere near over. We didn’t need to give up the second goal. Both goals were terrible on our part. It is what it is, and now we’ll get ourselves out of it.”

NOTES

Carolina has yet to score a goal on Seattle in 270 minutes of play this season, while the Sounders have hit the net four times over that same period. In order to advance in the playoffs, the RailHawks need to outscore Seattle by three goals in no more than 120 minutes Sunday.

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The Sounders’ Qwest Field proved to be one of the toughest places on visiting opponents this season. Seattle went 9-3-2 at home this year. The 29 home points were second only to Portland’s 30 at PGE Park, where the Timbers went 8-0-6.

Carolina went 4-8-2 and was outscored 24-14 on the road.

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If the RailHawks do climb out of the hole they’re in, they won’t be the first. A handful of teams have made up a one-goal deficit in recent years, but no one has come back from down two or more since 2000.

That year, when the USL First Division was known as the A League and featured 25 teams in two conferences, Minnesota lost the first leg of its semifinal against Vancouver 3-0. The Thunder came back and won the second leg 4-0 and advanced 4-3 on aggregate.

Schweitzer called that series to mind in his postgame comments. He might remember it because Minnesota advanced to the final to play Rochester, for whom Schweitzer was a defender at the time.

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Friday’s match was delayed 45 minutes due the late-day thunderstorms that battered parts of the Piedmont. When play began, standing water filled the middle of the field and there were several large puddles around stadium’s south goal. Almost all of the standing water was gone by halftime.

The storms no doubt contributed to thousands of empty seats around the 7,000-seat SAS Soccer Park. Carolina drew just 923 fans – by far the smallest crowd of the year – to watch perhaps the last RailHawks’ home match of the season.

The paltry attendance Friday prevented the RailHawks’ from eclipsing 100,000 fans for the season. Including Friday's game, the RailHawks drew 99,810 fans to the 20 matches (14 in the league, four in the U.S. Open Cup, two exhibition) it played at SAS Soccer Park in 2007.

Had the 100,000th fan walked through the SAS Soccer Park gates Friday, he or she would have received an autographed Carolina jersey and season tickets for the 2008 season.

The organization will have the offer if the team advances to the semifinals.