By LUKE MARTIN
Herald Correspondent
What a difference a year makes.
One year ago, South Georgia Tormenta found itself near the bottom of the USL League One standings as the season came to an end. The team’s stadium still seemed far away and they were playing home games at Georgia Southern.
Flash forward one year and things look very different. Optim Sports Medicine Field at Tormenta Stadium opened in October to give the team its permanent home. And in the standings, well, a 5-1-3 closing stretch propelled Tormenta to the third seed in the playoffs and the best regular season in team history.
Two Tormenta playoff wins and an upset win by the fourth-seeded Chattanooga Red Wolves in the other half of the bracket later, Tormenta is hosting the USL1 championship game Sunday night in Statesboro.
Tickets are available for purchase online at https://www.tormentafc.com/tickets/ until midnight Saturday for $40 general admission and $75 VIP..
If any general admission tickets are left prior to Sunday's kickoff, they will be available for $60 at the stadium.
It will be the first national championship game in Statesboro since Paulson Stadium hosted the 1-AA national football title game in 1991.
“It’s amazing,” said midfielder Adrian Billhardt about being able to host the title game. “We have players that have families flying from other countries just for this game. It’s going to be a great atmosphere, obviously.”
Chattanooga and Tormenta faced off three times this season, including three weeks ago in the season finale. In that game, Tormenta jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first 26 minutes and held on for a playoff-clinching win.
By virtue of that win, Tormenta secured the three seed while Chattanooga fell to fourth, giving Tormenta the right to host Sunday’s title game in Tormenta Stadium.
Midfielder Gabriel Cabral knew after that first meeting in July that the Red Wolves were a team to be reckoned with, calling them the strongest team in the table to his teammates.
“I think they’re the best football team. They have the most talent in terms of their whole structure and what they bring to the table,” Cabral said. “They have the freedom to move around and be creative and that brings some challenges to us because they have to be very switched on and try to close the gaps.”
Hosting a championship game comes with its own set of challenges above the normal preparation for a game. Tormenta Head Coach Ian Cameron has tried to keep things as normal as possible without ignoring the surrounding excitement.
“We need our guys to be a little bit selfish in terms of expectations of them from their families,” he said. “They say they want to share in the moment, but the moment will be all the sweeter if we keep our feet on the ground, do our work and have another good week of training which has gotten us to this point already.”
Chattanooga Red Wolves
Chattanooga has one of the most explosive offenses in USL1, scoring 54 games in the regular and postseason combined. They’re led by Juan Galindrez’s 13 goals on the season, good for fourth overall in the league.
Moe Espinoza and Rafael Mentzingen each added eight goals so far this year with Mentzingen’s goal in the 86th minute giving Chattanooga their lone goal in their win over Richmond in the semifinals.
While Chattanooga boasts a powerful offense, Tormenta’s defense has been strong, especially during the team’s current eight-game unbeaten streak. South Georgia has surrendered only five goals over that span and hasn’t conceded more than one goal in a single match.
Tormenta defense and counterattack
Led by twin towers of Josh Phelps and Jake Dengler in the middle of the Tormenta defense, South Georgia has had 10 shutouts on the year.
Dengler said the key to slowing down the Red Wolves is to clog the center of the field and make them try to beat defenders out wide to create chances.
“With the aerial threats we have in our box defensively, that’s not really something they can attack us on so they have to break us down through the middle which will never happen,” Dengler said. “They didn’t do that last time and we’ll have to keep doing that again.”
Billhardt, who was named the league’s comeback player of the year after returning from a knee injury that forced him to miss most of last season, said one of the challenges Chattanooga presents is their ability to possess the ball.
“There will definitely be long periods of time where we have to sit back and absorb the pressure,” Billhardt said. “But we also know there’s a great opportunity in scoring against them, especially with Kazaiah (Sterling) and Kingsford (Adjei) on the team.”
Offensively, Tormenta is led by Sterling, who has 16 of Tormenta’s 45 goals going in to the championship game, including all three of South Georgia’s goals in the playoffs. Adjei added seven goals on the year.
Sterling admitted it can be difficult at times waiting to counterattack, especially as an offensive player who likes to have the ball at his feet, but at the same time he knows the strengths of the team.
“You’ve got to trust your teammates,” he said. “It’s worked to this point for our team and it’s a strength of ours to sit back and the counter. It’s important that I’m concentrating and focused just as much as if I’m getting lots of touches on the ball.”
Tight match expected
Cameron said the Red Wolves are a talented team and expects Sunday’s title match to be a tight game throughout.
“We possess weapons that can beat them. We’ve beat them twice and we know it’s going to be a very hard game, Cameron said.
“We’re the lucky ones to be here for this evolution of the team,” Cameron said. “There’s a lot of work that’s come before us and we’re the group that gets to come at the right time, in the right place in the history of the club to where we have the resources, the willpower and the knowledge acquired to put ourselves in the final.
“We’re the lucky staff, the lucky players to be able to step out on the field and make history, and we’re aware of that and we hope to step up and give a performance befitting of the opportunity and go and get some silverware and back up with what the USLW team did in the summer and prove that Tormenta can fight for national championships on all fronts,” Cameron said.
Kickoff is scheduled for 7:30 and may be seen on ESPN2.