A clash between two teams near the top of the table Sunday night saw Greenville capitalize on their opportunities and South Georgia fail to do the same as Tormenta fell 3-0 to their rivals from South Carolina in the first game of the 2024 edition of the Peach States Derby.

Tormenta would create chances early in the match, including in the 17th minute when Nick Akoto was able to get open on the right and then play a pass to the middle to Sebastian Vivas. His shot was saved by the Greenville goalkeeper and the deflection fell to Ajmeer Spengler, but he wasn’t able to get a solid shot on target as the game remained scoreless.

Greenville would break through in the 33rd minute when a cross would slip through the fingers of Tormenta goalkeeper Ford Parker and Greenville’s Leo Castro was waiting for the tap in goal to put the Triumph ahead 1-0.

“I think it’s always tough when you concede a goal like we did tonight and I’ve got to take responsibility for that,” Parker said after the game. “I put the team under a little bit of pressure but I think we came out at halftime and responded well.”

“Any time you give up a cheap goal like that it’s going to cost you, especially against a good time,” he said. 

“There was a mistake at the start, but Ford’s been outstanding for us all season,” Tormenta Manager Ian Cameron said. “The challenge for the boys at halftime was get somebody who had three outstanding saves for us out of the hole and back him up and I don’t think the forward line did good enough.” 

Tormenta outshot Greenvile 14-8 on the night and earned eight corner kicks to Greenville’s one, but South Georgia’s inability to find the back of the net with their opportunities ultimately did them in.

“For the amount of times we arrived, there has to be a more dynamic edge to us,” Cameron said. “The forward guys had lots of opportunities have to get more production. I feel sorry for our fans because they should have watched more action, more goals, more attempts on goal, more creativity. That was lacking and we’ve got to address it.”

Tormenta came out in the second half and for the first 15 minutes were able to move the ball well and create some of those chances Cameron referred to. Six minutes into the half, Spengler found Jackson Khoury streaking down the left side, but his cross to the middle was unable to connect with anyone as Greenville was able to protect their 1-0 lead.

Greenville would have an apparent goal called back in the 77th minute when Lyam MacKinnon was whistled for being offside after he appeared to double the Triumph lead.

Three minutes later, however, MacKinnon would get a goal when he fired a shot from 18 yards out through the Tormenta defense  to the bottom right corner of the goal to make it 2-0.

MacKinnon would add another goal five minutes later as Tormenta had pressed forward for a throw in. MacKinnon took a pass from Ben Zakowski near midfield and raced down the  center of the field. He was able to beat Parker with his shot to seal the win for Greenville and keep them in first place through seven weeks.

“It was definitely a tough loss,” said Spengler. “We should have done better with the goals as a whole team, but we had good moments of sustained possession. We just didn’t do well enough as a team, defensively, protecting our goal and then executing offensively, we didn’t do well enough either.”

Cameron said after the strong start to the second half, his team started to try to do too much and failed to stick to what they’d worked on in practice.

“Individual players start to get frustrated not taking the passes in front of them or taking too long on the ball or overcomplicating the game instead of sticking to the formula and doing it time and time and time again,” Cameron said. “When multiple players on the field go off script and start doing their own thing, the chemistry breaks down and when the chemistry breaks down, there’s no rhythm and no pattern to what we’re trying to do and it becomes frustrating.

“It’s a long season,” Cameron continued. “They need to stick to the rhythms of the game that are taught to them. Too many young guys were going off script and that’s for me to correct.” 

“I think, moving forward, we have to take it on the chin, accept responsibility for it and get to work on Tuesday and work on getting the chemistry back with the front line, getting the chemistry back with the midfield and, most of all, just executing in front of goal,” Spengler said. “It was just one of those nights where the ball doesn’t go in.”

Tormenta will return to action Saturday when they host Charlotte in the first game of the Jagermeister Cup, a new in-season cup competition for USL League One. The competition groups the 12 teams into three groups with the winner of each group advancing to the semifinals and the team with the most goals among the other teams as the fourth semifinalist. Games that are tied will go straight to a shootout where teams can earn an extra point in the standings.

While the Jagermeister Cup games are against USL League One teams, the Cup games are separate from the regular season and don’t affect the regular season standings. Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. at Tormenta Stadium.