An early penalty kick and a red card right before halftime put Tormenta in a hole they weren’t able to climb out of as they fell to the Charlotte Independence Saturday night 2-0 at Tormenta Stadium.

“At this level, you can’t a penalty away they way we did and you can’t have the lack of discipline to have a red card and I think our players showed frustration the the officiating in the first half, but the reality was, it was a penalty and it was a red card,” Tormenta Manager ian Cameron said following the match.

The penalty came in the third minute as Tormenta was attempting to clear the ball. It bounced up, hitting a player in the hand and the official quickly signaled for the penalty.

Tormenta goalkeeper Austin Pack guessed correctly and dove to his left, but Christian Cheney’s strike was out of reach as the Independence jumped out to an early 1-0 lead.

“I think it has a visceral reaction within us,” said Tormenta captain Conor Doyle. “Obviously we’ve been struggling a bit lately so I think going down a goal is one of those things were you start chasing probably before you should.”

“It kind of deflates the balloon right away but I thought we picked our heads up and played great in the second half and put in a performance where we should have least gotten a point out of it.”

Cameron said his team needs to start games better as they’re giving up the first goal of the game too often, forcing them to play from behind for much of the match. He’s not sure what needs to change.

“I need time to figure that out. I don’t have the answer here now, but that’s got to be a piece in there and we’ve got to look at what the cadence of the early periods of games need to look like.”

After giving up the early goal, Tormenta was able to create a few chances over the next 15 minutes, including a header off a cross from Gabriel Alves that Charlotte goalkeeper Matt Levy was able to dive and corral and a blast from Jonathan Nyandjo from 25 yards out that went just wide.

Nyandjo had another opportunity later in the half, but his free kick attempt was saved by Levy.

Just before halftime, Jackson “Simba” Kasanzu was called for a foul on Cheney near midfield along the sideline. Cheney, while on the ground, pushed Kasanzu who responded by pushing Cheney in the face, drawing a straight red card from the official.

“That’s about as poor a night, as poor of a performance as you can have from a young player. That had a big effect on the match,” Cameron said of Kasanzu’s night. “He’s going to have to address that and he’s going to have to improve  and he’s going to have to learn from it.”

Cameron said this will be an important moment going forward for Kasanzu. 

“He’s got choices. Does he shy away and give himself excuses, or does he face the facts, face his team and say ‘I’m going to use this as a moment that I’m going to grow,’”

“Can he grow from it? Can this be an inflection point in his career because behind the scenes, today feels like a bit of a manifestation of a pattern of behavior that needs correcting. So it’s incumbent on us as saff, incumbent on us as a club and incumbent on the people that are behind him and support him like agents, family and friends, to support and help him. That’s the whole point of coming here. So, bad night at the office for him, he hurt his team and we’ve got to respond.”

Lightning strikes nearby caused an extended halftime as officials waited for the all clear to return to play and Cameron said the extra time was beneficial as they looked to change up their tactics in the second half.

“When you’re given a few extra minutes, a good staff should be able to look at it and say we’ve got 10 or 20 extra minutes, how do we best use that? So we made it crystal clear to the boys how we were going to look, where we were going to press, what we were not going to do so those action points were easier to explain  with the added minutes  and I think, for the most part, the boys did a decent job in the second half.”

Charlotte looked to extend their lead early in the half, but goalkeeper Austin Pack was able to make a couple excellent plays, including stopping Cheney from about six yards out, to keep the deficit at one.

Despite being down a man, Tormenta was able to create chances in the second half as they played more direct and brought the attack to Charlotte. Oscar Jimenez was able to get to the endline and cut a ball across the goal in the 68th minute, but wasn’t able to find a player to finish. 

Six minutes later, a cross from the left found Mason Tunbridge 12 yards out on the right side of the box, but his shot went right at Levy.

Nine minutes later, in the 87th minute, Taylor Gray’s shot from 20 yards out deflected off an Independence player and hit the side netting, just missing a goal.

Unfortunately for Tormenta, their efforts would come up short and Charlotte would score on what was essentially the final touch of the night to seal their 2-0 win.

“When you get scored on early it is a little bit of a shock because you’re not expecting that to happen,” said midfielder Gabriel Cabral. “We need to be ready to fight through all the adversities and maybe that shook us a little bit and we didn’t have the gear changed to come out with that same energy in the first half. We definitely showed some character the the second half,” he said. 

The loss is Tormenta’s fourth in a row in League One play, with their last win coming back on April 12 against Portland. South Georgia now sits at 2-6-1 (7 points) on the season while Charlotte 6-2-2 (20 points).

Tormenta player/coach Aaron Walker said the second half performance was something positive the team could take away from the game as they prepare for a stretch of the regular season that will see them play nine of their next 12 games on the road.

“There’s no other alternative. We’re all here to win games and we know we have to put our best foot forward to do that so we’ll just try to keep finding solutions, work hard, and believe.”

Cameron hopes this loss is the low point of the season and they can use the upcoming matches on the road to get back to the form he wants to see.

“You can’t rebuild and really bounce until you feel like you’ve hit the bottom and we, as a group, have got to find away to sit there this week and say, ok, this is the bottom in terms of discipline or this is the bottom in terms of the out puts that we’re putting into matches. 

“It wasn’t lack of running and stuff like that, but we’ve got to decide as a team that this is us at rock bottom. Do we have the fortitude as coaches, do we have the fortitude as players, do we have the fortitude as an organization to lick our wounds, come back and work ever as hard as ever and find new solutions.”

Tormenta returns to action Saturday when they travel to face Texoma at 8:30 p.m.