Stormwatch912

Sunrise over Hilton Head Island, SC.  Greetings from the coast of South Carolina where I'm on a family vacation for the week. So, no recap of the League One Chattanooga game, no preview for the Jagermeister Cup Fuego game or the W-League regular season finale against Fayetteville. But don't despair, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which will be for all the people. For unto you is posted this day a Power Rankings. It is silly and not to be taken seriously. This will be a sign for you. I've ranked teams by age of their mayor or summer vacation destination so taking these as anything more than a few minutes of fun is a mistake.  On the less fun front, I managed to sprain my ankle running after a frisbee Tuesday at the beach. This isn't one of those walk it off ones either. My wife was videoing me walking to the car after dinner to show her friends who are here with us, laughing because I'm not seriously hurt, but sympathetic enough to get me ice pack...

If Tormenta is going to make a run this season, it seems likely that it starts Saturday night with their road match-up with Chattanooga. The Red Wolves game is the first of four games with teams either below or just above South Georgia in the standings. Those teams (Chattanooga, then Central Valley, One Knox, and finally Lexington) have 15 losses in their last 20 games combined in League One play. In Jagermeister Cup play, which the Central Valley game is one of, Fuego is the only team other than Tormenta not to win a game in the competition, with one loss and three draws in the tournament so far. While three of the upcoming four games are on the road, this is likely as soft as the schedule is going to get for Tormenta.  We can do that. We can look ahead do some stat box and record scouting and envision a run where Tormenta rips off four wins in a row as their young roster gels at just the right time. We can dream on a situation where we look up in four weeks and have 21 points thr...

I'm going to miss Tormenta sunsets when the stadium is complete. For 83 minutes, Tormenta's USL W-League team dominated everything but the scoreboard.  A Smith Cathey goal in the 17th minute gave Tormenta an early one goal lead over the Charlotte Eagles in the second of back-to-back matches for Tormenta against the team from North Carolina. Both before and after Cathey's goal, Tormenta had numerous scoring chances, but a combination of fantastic goalkeeping by the Eagles' netminder and some plain old bad luck left Tormenta with its single goal as the game went on. Frustrating was the word of choice from Tormenta. "It's pretty frustrating but it happens to the best teams," Cathey said of the inability to convert their chances. "All you have to do is just stay in it and you're going to get that winning goal." "It's super frustrating," said striker Alice Bussey of creating chance after chance but not finding the back of the net. ...

Photo Credit: Conner Martin (Tormenta FC) In front of a national television audience for the second time in the team's history, Tormenta and Madison played to a scoreless draw to end the Mingos' six game winning streak on ESPN2 Saturday afternoon.  (If Tormenta is going to have a scoreless draw, can they at least do it in Spokane so I can use my "Scoreless Near Seattle" headline (Yes, I know Spokane isn't THAT close to Seattle.)) Madison dominated possession, controlling the ball for more than 60 percent of the match. But all that possession doesn't help a whole lot if you're not able to create chances and the Tormenta defense was able to limit Madison's opportunities. Forward Madison had just one shot (not on target) in the first half and ended the game with only one shot on target and that came very, very late in the match.  Despite having less of the ball, Tormenta was able to create chances, getting six shots off in each half but obviously unable t...

Sunset at Tormenta Stadium remains undefeated. (From Tuesday's USL W-League match) Hi again everybody. I did not mean to go this long without posting here, but the Statesboro Herald loaded up the Brinks truck and offered me money in exchange for work and I accepted their offer. If you missed, here's a link to my story of the League One side falling to Greenville Sunday night and then in Thursday's print edition (and online), I had a story on the USLW side's 5-0 win over the South Carolina Bantams . One or both may require a subscription or an email address to register to read. I'd like to think they're both worth your time.  By the way, was I the only one who didn't know what a bantam was? I'd kind of assumed it was like a ghost or a specter or something like that. But it's not, it's either: 1. Any of numerous small domestic fowls that are often miniatures of members of the standard breeds or 2: a person of diminutive stature and often combative...

Tormenta's W-League team will be looking for their third consecutive win on Saturday. So it's another busy weekend in Tormenta World with the USLW team playing in North Carolina while the League One squad faces Greenville. We also have the Unified Team in action as they're going to play Sunday night following the game against Greenville. (The academy team plays too this weekend, but there are only so many hours in the day and as much as I'd like to, I can't add coverage of them to my plate, sorry.) There's a lot to get to, so let's dive in. Tormenta USLW The women play on Saturday, so let's start with them. They'll face Carolina Ascent FC again, a team they defeated this past weekend 3-2 at Tormenta Stadium. Currently Tormenta sits in fifth place in the South Atlanta Division with 10 points (2.0 points per match). But let me tell you, the South Atlantic Division appears to be the toughest division in all of USLW.  Not all divisions have the same numb...

I never get tired of the sky over Tormenta Stadium (from Sunday) A busy weekend with Tormenta and another busy week ahead. Let's get to it with some updates and recaps and news of the week, shall we? I don't cover the Tormenta Academy team here, but they did have their season opener on Friday in Charlotte, earning a 1-1 draw. The League One squad was also in Charlotte Saturday night for a matchup with the Independence. That one saw the third consecutive match between the two end in a 1-1 draw as Juan Carlos Obregon, Jr. put Charlotte ahead 1-0 in the 23rd minute with a bit of flair, taking a ball chipped in to him, popping it over Tormenta's Jake Dengler, and then spinning and touching it past Ford Parker to give Charlotte a 1-0 lead.  South Georgia would have chances throughout the match, but struggled to get their shots on target as, for the longest time, they only had one shot on frame. One wrinkle that Tormenta unveiled was moving Nick Akoto up to the wing on the attack...