By the end of the night, Patriots Point was bouncing.

Buoyed by a historic display by the Charleston Battery that had ended both their scoring drought, earned a first win of the month, and sealed the Southern Derby against rival North Carolina FC with a 5-2 victory, the energy around the venue was evident.

At halftime, however, it looked like a far different story was about to unfold.

“We were pathetic in the first half,” said Battery Head Coach Ben Pirmann. “Terrible coaching, terrible performance, terrible attitude.”

In truth, North Carolina played the opening 45 minutes about as well as it could. It disrupted the Battery’s attacking rhythm with its physicality, preying on the evident frustration that four consecutive games without a goal had placed in the minds of the likes of Championship leading scorer Nick Markanich.

The Battery were held to only four shots, while NCFC capitalized on lapses by the hosts to take a two-goal lead. Off a Charleston corner kick in the 27th minute, a counterattack led by Oalex Anderson saw Chris Allan leave Evan Conway to try and create a double-team with Mark Segbers to win possession. When the pass squeezed between them, Conway made no mistake for his fourth goal of the season with a precise finish to the bottom-right corner.

Then, in first-half stoppage time, North Carolina turned possession over in the Battery’s half and quickly turned it into a second as Conway found Shaft Brewer arriving on the right for a first-time finish that bounced into the left corner of the net.

Five minutes into the second half, however, North Carolina’s physicality proved its undoing. An ill-advised challenge by Ezra Armstrong not only saw the left wingback need to be helped from the field but be shown his second yellow card and the resulting red. You’d be hard-pressed to find a better illustration of the phrase “adding insult to injury”.

Up a man – and with a man advantage in midfield with Allen, Molloy and Emilo Ycaza that had previously held the upper hand on NCFC’s Mikey Maldonado and Collin Martin in the first half – the Battery got to work.

MD Myers scored the first eight minutes after the red card, finding a soft spot in the penalty area where he was picked out by Allen after a sustained spell of pressure from the hosts for his first goal since May 8. Then with nine minutes to go it was Markanich’s turn to break his dry spell as he seized on a second chance after his initial volley was partially blocked to power home from close range.

“[When North Carolina] get that red card to start the half, we see an opportunity and we pounce on it,” said Myers. “It feels great. I do not know if there is relief. We have had a lot of unlucky breaks the last couple of games, and we keep working every day in practice. We had a really good week and we trusted it was going to come.”

At the midway point of their campaign, the Battery are on course for more points and more goals than they recorded a season ago as they battle for position in the top four in the Eastern Conference. With another major test coming next Friday night against fellow top-five side Birmingham Legion FC, there’s no room for a letdown.

“We have to have a growth mindset,” said Pirmann. “We have to get a lot better right now for next Friday. We’re halfway through the year. We're in a really good spot. We have an unbelievable defensive team, we just got to keep getting better. Proud of the boys in the second half.”

After a night that broke the side out of its recent slide, and the reappearance of everyone’s favorite victory mascot, the Battery appeared to reset their course in emphatic fashion.

“To go out and put five on the board is huge,” said Myers. “It is going to give us a lot of confidence.”