Indy renews its rivalry with the former Carolina Railhawks, fellow escapees from the NASL. McInerny is suspended from this one thanks to a bad foul last week, so Justin Braun should get the start after cameo appearances in the first two matches. Braun was an important piece of the 2016 squad, so it will be good to see him back in action. North Carolina is off to a rough start, having lost their first two games on the road. Indeed, they lost last week to Richmond, who looked awful in Indy's opening game. So on its face this looks like a winnable game. But this is North Carolina's home opener. We know ourselves from last week that home openers don't guarantee wins, but North Carolina will surely be motivated to put in a good showing after a poor start to the season.
Not pretty, perhaps, but a road win is always good. I'm still figuring out who's who in the new squad, but Pasher impressed me in the home opener, and he came up big here. As did Fon Williams with the late pen save. So that's two road wins against poor teams--games we need to win, and we did. But not much of a true test--we need to see a better performance against better opposition than we saw against FCC.