Knock a little louder sugar
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| B-52s front man Fred Schneider. His appearance here will make sense once you read on. Or maybe not. We'll see how it goes. |
Yaniv Bazini scored two goals sandwiched around the line Omaha goal all within the first 20 minutes and ....
What's that?
I can't just make some weird references to Fred Schneider and move on like everyone knows what I'm talking about? You want some kind of an explanation. Fine. That's fair.
Schneider is one of the lead singers for the Athens, Georgia based B-52s. They're not as popular as the other famous Athens band, R.E.M., but they had hits like Rock Lobster, Roam, and, for our purposes, Love Shack.
You know Love Shack. "The Love Shack is a little old place where we can get together." The video has a "before he was famous" appearance by RuPaul. Kids, ask your parents. Or just click on the link and go watch the video.
Anyway, near the end of Love Shack, the two women vocalists (Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson) start to repeat "Bang, bang, bang, on the door baby" and this leads us back to Jones as Schneider.
Schneider's response alternates between "Knock a little louder, sugar" and "I can't hear you," and "On the door baby," but clearly not allowing the women entry into the Love Shack.
Likewise, despite constantly banging on Tormenta's goal all night, Jones couldn't hear Omaha as he, except for the one goal in the 13th minute, couldn't hear them.
Ok, that was a long way to go and a very stretched analogy when I could have just said Jones, in just his second start, and the rest of the defense did everything they needed to in order to hold on for the win. But it was more fun to take a little detour, right?
Omaha had 19(!) shots on the night, but only three that found their way on target. They also had a whopping 70 percent possession on the night
70 percent! Like seven out of every 10 minutes in the game, Omaha had the ball.
(Editor: Yes Luke, we know how percent works.
Me: I know, but I was adding it there for emphasis.)
Tormenta, meanwhile, has 10 shots on the night with four on target. Fortunately for South Georgia, two of them were the Bazini goals.
The first came as a result of a turnover deep in Omaha territory. Bazini found himself all alone on the right side of the box and his shot to the far post beat Owls goalkeeper Rashid Nuhu and gave Tormenta the early lead in just the ninth minute.
Omaha wouldn't take long to respond. Forcing a turnover near midfield, they would attack quickly with the ball eventually finding Ryan Beacher who smoothly got himself open in the middle of the box before shooting it past Jones to equalize in the 13th minute.
Bazini would strike again just six minutes later. Following a Tormenta corner kick from the right was cleared from danger, Tormenta regained possession near the bottom of the circle and switched fields to the left. Taylor Gray's cross found Bazini who appeared to leave Nuhu flat footed as his shot found the back of the net, giving Tormenta a 2-1 lead in the 19th minute.
Beacher nearly added a second goal off a free kick in the 39th minute, but his strike hit off the post, bouncing back into play and then off Jones and out for a corner.
Omaha had two excellent chances in first half stoppage time, including a header by Beacher that went just high and a shot from 10 yards out from Botello Faz that went just wide.
The Owls kept the pressure on early in the second half, but Omaha could get their shots on target as Tormenta was like Neo in the Matrix dodging shot after shot.
(Editor: B-52s. The Matrix. You really need to update your pop culture references.)
Tormenta's best chance of the second half was a free kick from Niall Reid-Stephen from about 22 yards out that hit off the crossbar and bounced away.
Omaha kept the pressure up, but ultimately it was Tormenta able to escape with the victory.
"Tonight I don't think we deserved to win," South Georgia Manager Ian Cameron told the excellent and gracious Tim Howerton (@rbpenguinmedia.bsky.social) following the match. "Omaha created chances that they should've scored. But sometimes you have to have a bit of luck and I will give my boys a lot of credit. They put their body on the line in the box, defended the box relatively well. There was no uncontested shots and we scored the goals and took the lead. So, I think it was a good road win."
It was Tormenta's first win over Omaha in 11 matches between the two clubs.
"It's a relief to get a win over Omaha and I wish it was against (Former Omaha Head Coach Jay) Mims back in the day or Dom (former Omaha Head Coach Dominic Casciato, who left earlier in July to take on the head role with the Tampa Bay Rowdies), but in Vinnie (interim Head Coach Vincenzo Candela) you've got a terrific young coach and I thought his team played exceptionally well tonight," Cameron said.
Cameron said Friday's performance wasn't a typical one for Tormenta in that they barely possessed the ball, but Tormenta was able to come away with a win.
"It's not usually our M.O. It's not usually our game plan. I think everybody across the league knows that we're probably known for more attacking football, higher possession. But tonight, it's still a results oriented business. There's still owners (that) are spending a lot of money. It's still a development cycle, teaching young men how to win football games as well as develop them to play good football," he said.
"So, I think we just have to accept that that wasn't our plan, but it's the way we responded. We got the results, but we need to go back and analyze and say 'ok, why was that? Why did we give up so many chances? Why did we not control possession better? Was that just Omaha played well tonight or is there things that we can do better?' I'm sure we'll find things we can do better," he said.
With the win, Tormenta moves to 4-8-3 (15 points) and is currently in 11th place (as I write this on Saturday night.) They'll face Madison in another road test on Wednesday.
*Once again, a huge thank you to Tim Howerton for sharing the Ian Cameron quotes with me following the match on Friday. Be sure to check out rbpenguinmedia.substack.com and follow him on Bluesky for his excellent coverage of Omaha.
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