But under the leadership of a coach with a 2-0-0 record in season openers, the RailHawks clipped the Minnesota Thunder 2-1 to start the 2009 season on Saturday in Cary.

RailHawks coach Martin Rennie, in his first season with the USL-1 club after winning the USL-2 Championship last year in Cleveland, got two goals created by defender Mark Schulte's thrown-ins.

Like Rennie, Schulte was brought in from Cleveland during the offseason with hopes of bringing a winning attitude and results to the franchise.

"It's always great to start off because you always want to start off well. We feel like we're trying to start something new here in the [Triangle]. We're so excited to start something new," Schulte said. "That's kind of our goal. We want to separate ourselves from past years and really start off going up and on the up."

Rennie said that while he was happy with the way his team played, there were enough chances in front of the goal "to win four games" if his team had just executed better.

The RailHawks, which now feature a quick-passing attack, tallied 17 shots on the night, with four near-goals or goals in the game's first 20 minutes.

"We probably created 8-10 chances tonight. People want to see attacking soccer and that's attacking soccer. The bottom line is we have to take our chances," Rennie said. "But at the same time it's hard to get your first win and we got it, so that's a good thing."

Although Rennie was frustrated during the game at missed opportunities, he said in retrospect, he was more at ease with how the game went.

"You look at the game overall, our team has played well. The one thing you want as a coach is to create chances," Rennie said. "The guys will get a confidence and they'll start to convert them. If you're not creating chances then you're in trouble."

The first converted chance came off the leg of Schulte in the twelfth minute.

Schulte was outside the penalty area when his throw-in was headed back out to him. After the ball took a bounce on the pitch, Schulte fired a shot from three feet outside the right corner of the box into the left corner of the net.

"It's difficult to defend because it comes in on a flat line," Rennie said of Schulte's throw-in. "It's definitely a weapon."

Ten minutes later, Minnesota's Brian Kallman was given a red card after he scissor-kicked John Gilkerson from behind.

Despite the one-man advantage the Thunder wasted little time getting on the scoreboard.

Minnesota forward Melvin Tarley charged through the box in the 27th minute and beat goalie Eric Reed to tie up the game at 1 apiece.

"That's kind of common in football," Schulte said. "Whenever a team gets sent off, the team with 11 gets relaxed a little bit. We definitely fell prey to that, I was disappointed for us."

In the 56th minute, another throw-in by Schulte set up a RailHawk goal. This time the ball was headed out to Daniel Paladini, who hit the top post from 30 feet out as reserve Gavin Glinton headed in the rebound just past a landing goalkeeper.

"The ball was bouncing back to Daniel, I know that Daniel's got a strike so as soon as it took a deflection I just followed it just in case it came back in," Glinton said. "He obviously jumped up to tip it so I was just coming in full force and I was fortunate to get to it before he could punch it back out."

Glinton's goal proved to be the game-winner.

Despite leaving some goals on the field, the RailHawks have their first-ever season opening win, which has players optimistic going forward.

"Nobody's running on all cylinders yet so, the more you can get points early the better it is for you in the long run," Glinton said.

Out of the five returning players from last year's team, only Hamed Diallo saw action, all of it coming in the game's final 21 minutes.

The attendance of 2,927 was considerably fewer than the team's previous home openers, thanks in large part to Easter weekend.

Those who didn't go out of town were treated to, in addition to a win, a bagpipe group from N.C. State that kicked off the opening day festivities.

And during halftime, the North Carolina A&T drum line, Cold Steel, performed a crowd-pleasing display of percussion expertise that ended with a WakeMed Soccer Park standing ovation.