Tigers, Ball Boys and Previews

Photo Credit: Tormenta FC

Tormenta will take on AV Alta Saturday night. I've already expressed my complaints that Antelope Valley isn't actually named after Antelope, but Pronghorns, but I've failed to take into account what Alta means. As one does, I went straight to the source, wikipedia, where I learned Alta could stand for a number of things. My initial hope was that AV Alta was named after the Amur Leopard and Tiger Alliance, but it turns out that is an initiative between Russia and western conservation organizations to secure a future for both Amur Leopards and Amur Tigers in far eastern Russia and northeast China. So likely not the source of our AV Alta. 

After quickly realizing the acronyms listed on Wikipedia were likely a dead end (again, I assumed it wasn't the Australeasian Language Technology Association) so we had to take a new approach if this mystery was to be solved. (To be clear, a mystery to me, I'm sure many, many people knew the answer already).

Reaching a dead end in my wikipedia research, I turned to the AV Alta website, where they helpfully had an "About" section. This seems promising. The menu offered me three options, "Our Crest," "Leadership," and "About USL League One." I didn't need to know about USL League One, and Leadership seemed like an odd place to put that information, so I clicked on "Our Crest."

Videos? Awww man. Two of them as well. Didn't we learn from the whole "Pivot to Video" thing more than a decade ago that videos are fine and have their place, but people want words? (He says, hopefully, as Stormwatch912 has no video or audio component to it.) Fine, we'll watch a video. 

Less than 45 seconds in, I find my answer. My quest is at an end. A large potion of what is now the southwestern United States was originally under Spanish control, but became a territory of Mexico following their war of independence and renamed as Alta California in 1824. Over the next 24 years it went through some stuff with varying levels of autonomy, but was ceded to the United States in 1848 as part of the treaty ending the Mexican-American war.

So yay, mystery solved and we all learned a little something today.

One last quick story before we delve in to AV Alta and Tormenta. There's currently no press box at Tormenta Stadium for media members (there's a box for PA announcer, clock operator, Tormenta media relations staff), but I get to sit in the stands, which I like. I feel like there are little things you can see and hear from the stands that you miss in a press box. Allow me to illustrate my point.

If you watch closely on Richmond's second goal, they are able to get behind the Tormenta defense, in part, because of a quick throw in. Why were they able to take the throw in so quickly? Because the ball boy for Tormenta tossed the ball to the Kickers player immediately and then ran off to get the ball that had gone out of bounds. (If you go to the 2:36 minute mark in this video you can see it. Hey, look, there I am too in the video.) Good for Richmond for taking the throw in quickly. They capitalized on their opportunity.

But what I would have missed is that later in the half, one of the Tormenta players came over during an injury stoppage and calmly explained to the ball boy that if it's a South Georgia throw, you go fast, if it it's the other team, you go slow. That is a rite of passage for all ball boys. I remember in high school telling my younger brother (who would have been in middle school), to toss the ball to our guys but to roll the ball to our opponents when giving them the ball. My bother passed it down to the next ball boys. Now that my oldest is playing high school soccer, he and his team have told their ball boys the same thing.

It's ancient wisdom passed down from generation to generation.

Later, in the second half, another Tormenta player came over and gave a fist bump to a different ball boy which clearly made his night. Those little interactions are certainly things I'd miss sitting up in a press box. And so as long as Tormenta will let me, I hope to be sitting in the stands covering the game. 

Tormenta vs. AV Alta

Saturday, March 15, 7 p.m.

Tormenta Stadium

Remember that Seinfeld episode where when Jerry's date is in the light, she looks great, but when she's in the dark, she becomes unattractive? (Hmmmm, Seinfeld went off the air 27 years ago, I really need to update my pop culture references. Let's try again.) Do you remember in How I Met Your Mother when the Capitan looked happy from at the bottom of his face but terrifying when you looked just at this eyes? (Upon further research, that episode aired 15 years ago. Look, I've I've got two kids so I'm doing the best I can, pop culture wise. My Westchester preview is going to be nothing but 30 Rock jokes.)

Anyway, what that convoluted set up is basically trying to say is that if you look at Tormenta from one angle, things looked pretty good despite the loss. But viewed through another lens, a 4-2 loss to Richmond was a terrible look. As with most things in life, it's all in what you focus on. 

On the good side, Tormenta had nearly 70 percent of the possession, outshot Richmond 14-11 and had 10 shots inside the box. They won five corner kicks, more than doubled up on passes, hand an 85% passing accuracy, got off 19 crosses. In short, they played well, created chances and generally played the style of soccer Manager Ian Cameron wanted his team to play.

But those goals. 

Richmond's first goal came off a deflection. Their second came off that throw in I wrote about earlier. The third was off a corner kick. Those are correctable mistakes. But if you were using the second lens we discussed earlier, four goals is four goals and that's not going to cut it.

Tormenta turned its attention to AV Alta for this week.

"We've got a team who's coming in brand new. They're going to be full of energy and they're going to have been able to watch us in a live game without us having watched them, at least in a USL1 game, so they'll have the upper hand in that," said Cameron. "From our side, we've got got to knuckle down and get that defensive fragility away from us."

"I think we're good when we press, but when we're in that mid to lower block we just look a wee bit vulnerable and that's a side we have to shore up before we go in to next week."

While AV Alta comes in as an expansion team, there is experience to be found in the roster. Jimmy Villalobos (most recently of Forward Madison) will anchor the midfield while Alexis Cerritos (2024 in Lexington) will pose a threat offensively for AV Alta.

While they are a new club and this is their first game, Tormenta midfielder Aaron Walker said the team primarily needs to focus on what they are doing.

"We don't know a lot about them. We know some of their personnel, but we need to really focus on us," Walker said. "We can't get caught up too much in what they're doing. I think we have to fix what we let go wrong here (against Richmond) and focus on us and if we can just make those little, little tweaks that are super correctable then I like our chances against anyone."

I'll have a full recap in Sunday's Statesboro Herald and post the link to Bluesky.

News and Notes:

Mason Tunbridge was named Player of the Week while Niall Reid-Stephen was named to the bench for Team of the Week.

The guys over at the great "League One on the Rocks" podcast are doing a fun thing where they're tracking to see if there is a goal scored in every minute (stoppage time not included) of the League One season.  A fun thing to follow along with this season.

John Morrissey over at USLTactics had a breakdown of Tormenta/Richmond for those of you who want a more tactical breakdown of the game. 

Alex Ashton over at Beyond the 90 also had a good write up of last week's game. 

Greenville broke ground on their new stadium. Anything to get the Furman University football lines off the field!

The crew over at Rivercity93 had an interview with Richmond Head Coach Darren Sawatzky.

Hearts of Pine Head Coach Bobby Murphy was interviewed by ShadowWulf who is doing great stuff covering Portland. That interview is scheduled to be released tonight. (Hmmm, two podcasts with interviews with the head coach, maybe there is something to this whole audio medium after all.)