Tormenta and Richmond Draw on Saturday Night
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| Photo Credit: Tormenta FC Callum Stretch fires a shot against Richmond Saturday night. |
The opened the season against Georgia Southern, then a division below UGA in football and basically a tuneup for their wire-to-wire season of domination. There was no doubt Georgia was going to demolish their little brother from Statesboro and it was going to set the tone for the year.
If you don't know the story, you may be thinking that this is setting the stage for the retelling of a monumental upset about the little guy having everything come together in one special day and pulling off a victory for the ages. (You're also probably wondering when I'm going to get to the soccer, which is entirely fair. We're getting there, I promise.)
Well friends, on that day, Georgia Southern did not shock the world. They fell behind 38-0 before scoring 21 points as the final score was 45-21. But what happened next is why I tell this story. In the next rankings that were released, UGA fell from the top spot to number three. Some will say that other teams looked better or that Georgia wasn't impressive enough in their win to stay at Number One.
I, meanwhile, continue to tell people about the time Georgia Southern knocked UGA out of the top spot in the polls. I tell those who don't know the story that UGA was ranked Number One, they played Georgia Southern, and then they weren't Number One anymore. Ergo, Georgia Southern knocked them from the top spot.
On a slightly different scale, Tormenta tied Richmond 1-1 Saturday night in Jagermeister Cup action before falling 6-5 in penalties, giving Richmond two points and Tormenta one. However, even with the penalty shootout win, the draw knocked Richmond out of contention for winning the East Group. Sure, it was highly unlikely Richmond could have won the group (and even though the League One website didn't officially have them eliminated before Saturday's matches, I'm still not sure they actually could have won it), the fact is that they Tormenta, even in a penalty defeat, eliminated Richmond from winning the group.
That's of little solace for Tormenta fans as South Georgia remains winless in Jagermeister Cup games this year, going 0-3-4 (W-L-D) through seven games with one remaining. While they can still advance to the knockout round, it's going to require an offensive explosion in their final Cup game against One Knox. The final spot goes to the team that didn't win their group that has the most goals scored. Currently that is Omaha with 13 goals while South Georgia has eight in the competition.
As for the actual game, things started out well for Tormenta. In the sixth minute, Mason Tunbridge recovered a Kickers' turnover near midfield and quickly started to attack upfield. He attempted to dribble into the Richmond box, but a Kickers' defender managed to deflect it away. As luck would have it, the ball deflected to Tormenta's Niall Watson on the right side. His left-footed volley found the back of the net and gave Tormenta a 1-0 lead.
After a couple of opportunities from Richmond, including a shot from Landon Johnson in the 22nd minute that went just wide by a diving Drew Romig. Minutes later, Emiliano Terzaghi at midfield found Justin Sukow with a ball over the top. Sukow settled and blasted a shot by Romig to tie the score at one.
Tormenta was able to create chances throughout the half, including shots by Callum Stretch and Watson on the right side and Daniel Steedman late in the half from the left, but none of them hit paydirt.
Early in the second half, Richmond appeared poised to take the lead. Terzaghi collected a loose ball near the left corner of the six-yard box. Romig came out to pressure but Terzaghi was able to make a move towards the endline and got a cross off but Alsadiq Hasan came up to head the ball away and put an end to the threat.
We'll get back to the game in a second, but first, I want to say that announcing soccer is hard and those broadcasting these games are far, far better at it than I could ever be. But that doesn't mean that every now and again they don't say things that, taken out of context, made me laugh. In the 77th minute, Former Tormenta Legend and current Kicker Adrian Billhardt lined up a corner kick. The announcer said his name and that he was setting up for an in-swinger and then, as he sent in the corner kick, said "Billhardt, punched by Romig." (go to 4:05 in the video). Clearly he was talking about the ball, but it made me laugh at the watch party when he said it.
Neither team was able to score in the second half. Once the full-time whistle blew, that ended the faint hope Richmond had of advanced. (Richmond needed two wins and Charlotte to win and then draw against Greenville, followed by Charlotte winning the shootout. Had that happened, all three would have been at 13 points.)
Despite that, a penalty shootout still remained. Tormenta would go ahead 3-2 as Terzaghi missed Richmond's third penalty shot after South Georgia was perfect through three. New signee Aaron Walker converted his attempt to put Tormenta ahead 4-2 and needing either one make or one miss from Richmond in their final two shots. Jackson Khoury would have his shot saved by Kickers' goalkeeper Ryan Shellow, after Richmond converted, and then Richmond, trailing 4-3, made their final penalty to tie it at four.
After both teams converted on their sixth attempt, Shellow would save Daniel Steedman's attempt and then Ryan Sierakowski, another former Tormenta legend, converted his penalty to give Richmond the penalty victory and the extra point.
Tormenta returns to League One regular season action on Saturday when Northern Colorado travels to Statesboro in what will be the only game of the night in League One.
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