Stormwatch912

Photo Credit: Tormenta FC Can I tell you a secret? Just between us ok? No one else needs to know. Ok, here goes. I was super nervous after my preview post last week before the Greenville game. I spent a lot of time talking about the playoffs and Tormenta likely returning for the first time since 2022. I wrote stuff like "any playoff game is something to savor," which, while true, could have been premature.  You see, Tormenta hadn't actually clinched a playoff spot yet. There was still a chance South Georgia crashed and burned and missed the postseason completely. I tell myself I don't believe in jinxes, but there's always a small part of me that worries that maybe, just maybe, I can jinx something and suddenly things go terribly wrong and somehow I was responsible. (I promise you that if I had the power to jinx things, I would use that power on more important things than getting a running clock in a high school football game or Tormenta making the playoffs.) As i...

Photo from USL League One website This could be the week Tormenta makes its way back to the playoffs for the first time since their 2022 title-winning run.  After missing out in 2023 and 2024 and, honestly, midway through July it looked like 2025 was going to continue that trend, Tormenta is just a win over Greenville or a Madison draw/loss away from punching their ticket to the dance. (Does the USL issues paper tickets to the dance? It seems like it's all digital now. Could you crash the dance? Could Richmond just show up to One Knox and demand to play in the first round of the playoffs? Is Darren Sawatzky going to walk up to Ian Fuller and be all " Mind if we dance with your dates? " like in Animal House? ) Anyway, with just two games remaining, Tormenta could finish as high as 4th and host a playoff game, but that's about as likely as me suiting up for Tormenta this season. A lot would have to happen and, frankly, it's not worth getting in to.  The more likel...

It makes sense why this is here, I promise.   My mom played softball growing up. Nothing super competitive, but rec league stuff. She enjoyed it and was pretty good, but this isn't a story about her softball prowess.  She told me stories of an umpire in her town that had a reputation of not always paying attention to the game and regularly missing calls. I don't mean he got the calls wrong. I mean he just didn't see them at all. I'm not sure what he was paying attention to (obviously I wasn't born yet), but apparently it wasn't the game. Rather than make the call and just go with it, he did what every kid does when they are on the playground and you can't agree on the call. He just called a "do over." Yep, just replay the whole thing  like the first event never happened. He did this often enough that he had the nickname "Do Over Harold" and while I'm sure Harold was a fine gentleman in all other aspects of his life and likely has sinc...

It's a sad state of affairs when this is what passes for journalism these days. Ok, that title may be overselling it a lot as we're not doing a deep dive into how Mark McKeever came to be the manager of Tormenta, but I did get some details about the process and wanted to pass them along.  So apparently me and my oldest were on the opening of the Torment/Richmond broadcast where they show scenes from around the stadium. Special thanks to Jackson Popkin who got a screenshot of us as we were talking to Tormenta co-owner and president Darin Van Tassell who, and I swear this is true, came down and the first thing he asked was how my oldest did in America's Favorite Game where he guesses the Tormenta starting eleven. (He got nine right.) But since he was there and it was the first chance I'd had to talk to him since Tormenta announced the hiring of Mark McKeever on a permanent basis, I wanted to ask what went in to that decision and what the process was like to arrive at the...

 In case you missed it, Tormenta removed the interim tag from Mark McKeever , naming him Manager for Tormenta on Wednesday.  At least one person has said McKeever should get consideration for League One Manager of the Year for his turn around of Tormenta. While I see the case and am sympathetic to it to a point, it's hard for me to see giving the award to someone who was head coach for 12 games when someone like Scott MacKenzie has guided Chattanooga to the league's top spot and will have been doing it for 30 games. At some point, just the volume of games has to count for something. However, if Tormenta ends up going 10-1-1 under McKeever, he would have a case. I just happen to think MacKenzie's case would be stronger (assuming the Red Wolves don't collapse between now and the end of the season.) But like Outkast sang, "ya'll don't want to hear me, you just wanna dance," or at least you want me to write about the upcoming game with Richmond and not ab...

Photo Credit: Tormenta FC Tormenta removed the interim tag from Mark McKeever's title Wednesday morning, officially naming him as the next Head Coach for South Georgia in an announcement . "Mark has show not only his ability to win games, but also his commitment to our players, club values and community," said Tormenta FC Owner and President Darin Van Tassell. "Anyone following in the footsteps of Ian Cameron was going to have a tall task, and Mark's vision for the future of Tormenta FC matches our culture and ambitions. We believe he is the right leader to guide us forward, both on and off the pitch. It has been an absolute pleasure to have a front row seat to the work ethic and committment to players displayed by Mark and Associate Coach Jordan Bell. They are a formidable and talented duo." McKeever was initially hired to be an assistant on Cameron's staff and served in that role for just a few weeks before Cameron surprised the club with his resignati...