Some stared blankly, others cursed and others punched the ground.

Carolina extended its franchise best unbeaten streak to six matches with a 1-1 tie against Rochester at WakeMed Soccer Park, but that was of no consequence. Rochester tallied the equalizer in the 89th minute to force the draw, the second time in three matches and third time this season the RailHawks (2-0-4) squandered a late-match lead, flushing a sure three points down the drain and having to accept just one.

“We just lose our brains at the end of the game,” said Carolina goalkeeper Chris McClellan, who had three saves. “We feel we can keep going forward when the smart thing to do is to keep our shape and our discipline. It’s not like we don’t have it because at the beginning of the game, it’s unbelievable. Just a little mental endurance is what we need.”

In the 89th minute, Rochester forward Mauricio Salles took down a ball in the middle of the box from Luke Kreamalmeyer and knocked it under McClellan’s grasp from seven yards out. Salles was left open, and no one challenged his shot because several RailHawks believed Salles took the ball down with his arm. But no handball was called.

And that’s no excuse for allowing the goal.

“We do some silly things up here in the midfield, and we do some silly things in the box,” said Carolina coach Scott Schweitzer. “And we’re expecting everybody else to get it out. I don’t care if it’s a handball. You never stop playing. You should know that.”

The result was particularly aggravating because of how well Carolina played the first half, a stretch of 45 minutes that Schweitzer believed no one in the league had played as well as his side did all season.

The RailHawks spent the first 15 minutes in Rochester’s end, and that pressure paid off in the 14th minute when Martin Nuñez scored his first goal of the season.

Nuñez received a pass from Kupono Low 25 yards from goal. He went straight at the defense and beat three defenders with a series of stepovers before taking a left-footed shot that tucked into the net, just out of the reach of the diving Rochester goalkeeper Scott Vallow.

“Their left back was giving me a lot of space,” Nuñez said. “I started going at him and it started working.”

The RailHawks nearly went up 2-0 in the 27th minute, but Dan Antoniuk’s 20-yard bender that beat Vallow crashed off the post.

Rochester coach Darren Tilley subbed out defender John Ball for forward Matthew Delicâte in the 68th minute in an effort to bolster his attack. While Rochester got forward more in the second half, McClelland didn’t have to make a save until the 78th minute, when he turned away a Salles attempt off a Rochester corner.

As Rochester started pushing for the equalizer, Schweitzer reasoned that should have benefitted his side.

“It’s just basically slowing ourselves down and picking them apart,” Schweitzer said. “Instead, we just tried to force, force, force and we just kept giving the ball back.”

In the 89th minute, Rochester (0-4-3) made the RailHawks pay. The goal was just the Rhinos’ second in its first seven games this season. Though the Rhinos have fallen on hard times, their determination to fight to the final minute is something the RailHawks could learn from.

“We kept plugging away and we believed in ourselves,” Tilley said. “We haven’t had the best of starts on many different levels, but what we have got is players that want to play for each other and play to the end.”

Carolina is 0-0-3 during its four-match homestand. Their final match before a five-game road trip is Wednesday against Seattle, a team the RailHawks went 0-4-0 against last season and didn’t score against in any of their four meetings. Wednesday’s match is the RailHawks’ final USL-1 home game until June 27.

“When you got on the road for an entire month, it’s hard to get points,” McClellan said. “I feel like we really missed out on a lot of points here. We gave away six points in three games, so we need to get a win on Wednesday against a tough Seattle team. I watched them last night, and they looked great. We need to really pick it up.”

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