CARY - In final minutes of the first half Wednesday, Carolina coach Scott Schweitzer stood in front of his bench with hands covering his face, his head shaking in disbelief.

His RailHawks had enjoyed a man-advantage over Seattle for the last 25 minutes of the first half and done nothing with it.

But moments before intermission, just before Schweitzer was to summon the words to get his team going for the final 45 minutes, a Sounders gaffe gave the RailHawks all the motivation they’d need.

Noah Merl’s 45th-minute own-goal gave the RailHawks a 2-1 lead, and Carolina held on to the advantage and closed out their four-match homestand with the 2-1 win over the Sounders (3-2-3) at WakeMed Soccer Park.

“You deserve to be lucky sometimes,” Schweitzer said. “We’ve been putting it in all year. We haven’t gotten frustrated. We just keep playing and going.”

The win over Seattle capped the RailHawks’ otherwise unremarkable four-game homestand, but it was a needed result. Carolina tied its last three matches at home – twice conceding the tying goal in the final 10 minutes.

The RailHawks (3-0-4) will play their next five USL-1 matches away from WakeMed Soccer Park, a span of games that will also feature four games in four cities in 10 days. They’re counting on the win over the Sounders to serve as the catalyst that will keep them near the top of the USL-1 table.

Wednesday’s win allowed Carolina to jump into a tie for third with Vancouver and Portland. All three teams have 13 points.

“When you have a homestand where you get four or five games, you want to come out with more than ties,” said Carolina midfielder Steve Curfman. “To get a win going away, it gives us a lift. We’re still undefeated. We still haven’t dropped a game and spirits are high now.”

Carolina’s spirits were high early Wednesday. The RailHawks entered the match against the reigning league champions having lost all four of the previous meetings without scoring a goal.

In the ninth minute, forward Connally Edozien put an end to that streak.

Defender Frankie Sanfilippo started a counterattack on the right flank out of the back. He carried the ball into Seattle’s end then played Martin Nuñez into the box. Nuñez fired a shot on goal. Sounders goalkeeper Chris Eylander made the initial save, but Edozien jumped on the rebound and knocked it in.

“You create your chances, but most importantly you have to be in the right place at the right time,” Edozien said. “You’re pushing forward and you just need that one chance to make a difference. I’m happy for myself and the team. I think we deserved this result. It’s not the prettiest. I’d like to put a top corner goal, but at the end of the day, the result is what counts.”

But the RailHawks, as is becoming commonplace, were unable to protect the lead. The Sounders evened the match five minutes later when Sebastien Le Toux buried a penalty kick.

“Morale dropped a little bit, but you’ve got to realize it’s only 20 minutes into the game,” Curfman said. “You’ve got 70 more to go. We might have been down for a few seconds, but we got right back up.”

The RailHawks bounced back quickly, in part, because the Sounders gave away the momentum they’d just secured.

In the 16th minute, midfielder Zach Scott was shown a red card for a malicious tackle on Carolina’s Kupono Low.

Despite being a man down, Seattle didn’t drop back into a defensive shell, but Carolina was unable to break the Sounders down. Defender David Stokes had a quality chance turned away by Eylander in the 20th minute, but the RailHawks weren’t able to get another one the remainder of the first half until the Sounders own-goal.

In the 45th minute, under pressure from Carolina, Seattle defender Merl headed the ball back to Eylander. But it was too high, Eylander couldn’t get a hand on it and the ball settled into the frame to give the RailHawks a 2-1 lead.

Seattle nearly tied the match in the 82nd minute on Le Toux’s half-volley form 12 yards, but Carolina goalkeeper Chris McClellan made the save to preserve the result for the RailHawks.

“Pretty much every game we’ve tied, we feel we’ve given away the game,” Curfman said. “To be in a game that was close, to come out of that and not give one away is a real good feeling.”