September 21, 2008 | 16:36
A light but compact crowd gathered at Bull McCabe’s in Durham on Friday night to watch the USL-1 Carolina RailHawks take on the Charleston Battery. It came as a surprise to some at the bar that such significant emotion could be generated for somthing that they did not heretofore know existed.
Yet, there it was, a handful of grown men screaming with arms raised when Matt Watson pulled the midfield lever that sent Hamed Diallo racing through to goal in the 8th minute. Carolina had looked intent from the off, playing with an intensity and crispness that had been lacking throughout a woeful midseason stretch. Charleston, who had just given D.C. United everything they could handle in the U.S. Open Cup final, looked the lesser side here and it was no more than Carolina deserved when Kupono Low and Santiago Fusilier combined to spring Diallo again in the 24th minute. The man from Côte d’Ivoire slipped between two defenders and neatly slotted home his second. Charleston made it a real talon-biter late in the game but the Hawks clung to thier prey, claimed the Southern Derby cup for season-long supremacy over Atlanta and Charleston, showered, hopped in the bus and came back to Cary to welcome the Portland Timberrrrs.
>> Read Chris Gaffney's full article at Triangle Offense, the Independent Weekly's sports blog.
Yet, there it was, a handful of grown men screaming with arms raised when Matt Watson pulled the midfield lever that sent Hamed Diallo racing through to goal in the 8th minute. Carolina had looked intent from the off, playing with an intensity and crispness that had been lacking throughout a woeful midseason stretch. Charleston, who had just given D.C. United everything they could handle in the U.S. Open Cup final, looked the lesser side here and it was no more than Carolina deserved when Kupono Low and Santiago Fusilier combined to spring Diallo again in the 24th minute. The man from Côte d’Ivoire slipped between two defenders and neatly slotted home his second. Charleston made it a real talon-biter late in the game but the Hawks clung to thier prey, claimed the Southern Derby cup for season-long supremacy over Atlanta and Charleston, showered, hopped in the bus and came back to Cary to welcome the Portland Timberrrrs.
>> Read Chris Gaffney's full article at Triangle Offense, the Independent Weekly's sports blog.
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