Despite South Georgia Tormenta’s great start to the season, many of their wins have come in last-minute or come-from-behind fashion.
Tormenta spared any of that drama and improved its winning streak to five straight matches as it notched a 2-0 victory over Peachtree City MOBA Wednesday night at Erk Russell Park.
A season-opening 2-2 draw against MOBA in suburban Atlanta stood as the only points left unclaimed by Tormenta in their Premier Development League schedule. Tormenta sent an early message that it was out for the win when Callum Chapman-Page got his head to a free kick, putting it off the post and into the net for a quick 1-0 lead in the fourth minute of Wednesday’s action.
“My first job is to keep a clean sheet,” Chapman-Page said, “So first and foremost, I’m glad that we didn’t allow anything. But it was good to be able to come up into the attack and give us a goal. Both teams covered well, but we kept our shape better and were able to find the goals.”
While Tormenta wasn’t able to run away with the win, it was able to lock down and minimize scoring chances for Peachtree City. Pablo Jarra notched his fourth shutout of the season and only had one dangerous shot to deal with in ensuring the win.
Tormenta took a 1-0 lead into halftime and continued to nurse it through the early minutes of the second half. Peachtree City upped its offensive pressure, but still couldn’t manufacture quality looks on net.
That change in strategy led to a counter-attacking opportunity for Tormenta and the game was broken open in the 66th minute.
Connor Antley recorded his second assist in as many games when he took the ball down the right side and played it into the box. Alvaro Arche stepped over the ball, tying up defenders as he let it pass, allowing it to find the right foot of Jad Arslan.
The third year Tormenta player let loose with a shot and a deflection by a Peachtree defender couldn’t stop Arslan’s strike from finding its intended target in the back of the net for a 2-0 Tormenta advantage.
“We’ve told the guys since the beginning of the season to focus on the home turf and to make this a hard place for other teams to play,” Tormenta assistant coach Jorge Gonzalez said. “We said that we needed to have the first goal. You don’t always want to rely on your defense, but they’ve played well enough to do that. The defense was strong again and then we put it away with another goal in the second half.”
Following the win Tormenta still trails Mississippi Brilla FC by two points in the Deep South Division standings, but has played two fewer games. That means that Tormenta controls its own destiny, but keeping pace will require picking up points on the road. Tormenta will load up for a nine-hour bus trip ahead of a Saturday game at Memphis, returning home for a quick rest before heading to Myrtle Beach next Wednesday.
The road trip and packed schedule are demanding, but Tormenta is up to the challenge.
“Long trips are challenging, but we just look at each week as it comes up,” Chapman-Page said. “We’ve got a team near the bottom of the table and then another that we’ve played two hard-fought games against. We’re going to hopefully take our best effort into each.”
