Everybody's Working for the Weekend

My home away from home this weekend

"What are we doing this weekend?"

It's something that I usually ask my wife every Friday morning as a way to figure out if I forgot any plans that she's told me about during the week. Stuff like a birthday party I'm supposed to take my youngest to or dinner with my parents or her birthday. You know the drill.

Well, today I didn't have to ask that. For one, she's going out of town with our youngest to our nephew's birthday party. No, I'm not a bad uncle for skipping. Someone has to stay here to take my oldest to take the SAT on Saturday morning. But that's not why I didn't ask. No, this weekend I'm basically moving in to Tormenta Stadium. 

You know how baseball teams will play a three game series over the weekend? It's kind of like that, but with soccer, and it's not a series, and three different opponents over three nights split between the W-League and League One guys. Ok, so it's nothing like a baseball series. It's a virtual smorgasbord of soccer this weekend at the stadium with each game an important one. Let's take a look, shall we?

(Unless something comes up that I don't know about, all three game recaps will be posted the next day at the Statesboro Herald website. As of this writing, you can get 30 days of online access for $1.99. If you just read my three stories, that's like 67 cents an article. That's less than the cost of a postage stamp. Kids, postage stamps are things used to send mail. Mail is like email that is printed out and sent from one house to another. Yes, we get the word "mail" from it's root word "email." - don't look that up, just trust me and go with it.)

Friday, June 6

Tormenta Stadium

7:30 p.m.

Tormenta vs. Charlotte Eagles (W-League)

This is the second meeting between the two teams as they squared off back in the second game of the year for Tormenta on May 20. That game ended in a 1-1 draw with Constance Agyemang's second goal of the season equalizing the match in the 65th minute following an early goal by Charlotte just 13 minutes in to the first half.

I tried to watch that game on the live stream and it was a tall order. The camera was so far away from the field, there weren't any announcers and all in all it was a tough watch. Standing in the corner will be a much better viewing experience. 

Anyway, coming in to this game, Tormenta is 4-1-1 with 13 points on the season. It's important to note that in the W-League, the division winners are determined by points per match if an uneven number of games are played and not overall points. Because the season is so compressed and there may not be a chance to make up any games postponed due to weather, the important number to look at is PPM. For that, Tormenta is currently third in the South Atlantic Division with  2.17 while the South Carolina United Bantams are second with 2.25 (and a 3-1-0 overall record) while defending champion North Carolina Courage are in first with 3.00 points per game (4-0-0).

Charlotte, meanwhile, sits in fifth place with 1.50 points per match and a 2-1-3 record with their two wins coming over the bottom two teams in the table, Wake FC and NC Fusion.

Unlike last season, there are no wild cards from the Eastern Conference, which includes the Chesapeake, Metropolitan, Mid Atlantic and South Atlantic divisions. The only way to the playoffs is winning your division. Which means Tormenta, likely needs to win out and getting some help from someone against the NC Courage. If Tormenta were to win out, they'd be 10-1-1 while if the Courage only lose to Tormenta and win the rest, they'd be 11-1-0. But we're getting WAY ahead of ourselves. First things first is a matchup with Charlotte Friday night. Tormenta needs to show the offensive consistency they've shown recently and maybe have their luck turn a little. Against the Carolina Ascent in their last home game, they had two shots hit off the post and another off the crossbar and none of the three went it. 

Saturday, June 7

Tormenta Stadium

7:30 p.m.

Tormenta vs. Charlotte Independence (League One)

Hey, look, another Charlotte teams makes its way to Statesboro to play the second of two matches with Tormenta. This time it's the Independence, who have won four of their last five games in league play. However, they did draw against Lexington in the Jagermeister Cup last weekend and were coming off a 2-1 loss to AV Alta before that.

Even with that, Charlotte is currently tied for second with 17 points through nine games but only have a +4 goal differential in League One play. Other than a 3-1 win over One Knox in the middle of May, every game they've played has been a draw or decided by one goal, including their 3-2 win over South Georgia on April 20th in Charlotte. That game saw Charlotte jump out to an early 1-0 lead in the 9th minute before Mason Tunbridge tied it up shortly after halftime with a penalty conversion. However, Charlotte would add two more before a late Sebastian Vivas goal cut the lead to 3-2, but the comeback fell short.

Tormenta, meanwhile, has hit some rough waters after a promising start to the season. Their last win came in Jagermeister Cup action on April 26 and their last win in League One play was back on April 12 against Portland. Now the appropriate counterargument to that would be to say Tormenta only played three games in May, which is true, but it doesn't change the fact that it's been a while since Tormenta came away with a win.

Tormenta's last game was in Jagermeister Cup play against USL Championship side Tampa Bay in which Tormenta took an early lead, but conceded an equalizer in the 79th minute and then the game winner in the fourth minute of stoppage time to fall 2-1. 

With a win, Tormenta could hopefully right the ship as the Summer months arrive. One worrying thing for South Georgia is that Saturday will be their seventh home game already out of nine games. You're all smart people, so you know that means there will be a lot of road matches coming up. Just counting League One play, after Saturday, nine of Tormenta's next 12 games are on the road. So yeah, after reading that, I can see where you might hold off on the whole $1.99 30-day subscription to the Statesboro Herald. I get it. 

Having sat through games in June, July and August at Tormenta Stadium, even with the 7:30 kickoffs, it's hot. And I'm old and I like my creature comforts, so from a selfish perspective, I'll enjoy watching from the comforts of my couch. I am sure the players may not enjoy it as much. But to turn their season around, they're going to need to become road warriors. However, turning the season around starts with a good performance Saturday. 

Sunday, June 8

Tormenta Stadium

7:30 p.m.

Tormenta vs. South Carolina United Bantams (W-League)

Wait, didn't Tormenta just play them? Like earlier this week. Yeah, they got a 2-0 win in a game where the stream didn't really work in the first half but Mady Soumare scored twice in the first 20 minutes and Tormenta held on with a stellar defensive performance to hand the Bantams their first loss of the season. 

And now we're playing them again? Just two days after playing the Charlotte Eagles? What is happening? That way leads to madness!

Maybe so, but this is the schedule Tormenta has so this is the schedule Tormenta plays. And can I tell you a secret? I kind of used up all my Tormenta W-League stuff for the first preview section. It's even harder to write a preview for a game when they have another game in between. What are the records? Who knows. Does Tormenta have momentum? Whose to say, really?

How about we wing it for this part?

Soumare and Agyemang lead Tormenta with two goals each. Agyemang, in my total novice opinion, is a spark plug for South Georgia. She's quick, has a good touch on the ball and creates havoc for defenses both on and off the ball. 

Other goal scorers for Tormenta are Nikole Solis, Lina Jaime, Katie Russo and Chinatsu Kaio. It's possible I'm missing someone as the USL-W stats page has Tormenta only playing five games and while it's been a while since I've taken a math class, I'm pretty sure 4+1+1 still equals 6. 

Even after this game, Tormenta has another quick turnaround as they play the NC Courage on Wednesday night in Statesboro. But they'll have two whole days of rest before that one. 

Have a great weekend and we'll hopefully see you at Tormenta Stadium. 

Tormenta's Director of Communications and Marketing is named Bernadette O'Donnell. I'd considered naming this post "Weekend at Bernie's" in her honor, but since I have never, ever, called her "Bernie," I didn't think a blog post was the right place to start for a mediocre joke at best. It was amusing enough, to me, to put down here though, so if you read to end, you get a little treat.