South Georgia Tormenta will make its second postseason appearance in club history Sunday night as the sixth seed when they travel to face the third seeded Spokane Velocity in the opening round of the USL League One playoffs. 

In late July, the playoffs seemed unlikely for Tormenta as they were mired near the bottom of the table at 4-10-4 with 12 games remaining in the regular season. It was then that manager Ian Cameron unexpectedly resigned and Mark McKeever, who had just recently been brought in as an assistant on Cameron’s staff, took over as interim manager.

From that point on under McKeever, Tormenta went on 9-1-2 run  to close out the season and climb all the way to sixth in the standings. McKeever was named the permanent head coach during that run of success. 

Tormenta and Spokane met twice in the regular season, with Spokane topping Tormenta 1-0 under Cameron in Statesboro in May and the two teams battling to a 1-1 draw earlier in October in Washington.

Tormenta has never beaten Spokane in the Velocity’s two years as a club, going 0-3-1 in their four meetings so far.

When McKeever took over he knew the team had the talent to make a run to the playoffs.

“I saw us winning every single game four-nothing to be honest with you,” he said. Maybe that’s unrealistic, but we go to win every game and I think it was a one game at a time scenario but there was no question we had the talent to go on a run.” 

Niall Reid-Stephen has led the Tormenta turnaround offensively, scoring nine of his 13 goals since mid-August. He also added seven assists and has garnered attention as a potential MVP candidate around the league.

Reid-Stephen is one of three Tormenta players with at least nine goals as Yaniv Bazini (11) and Mason Tunbridge (9) led a formidable South Georgia offense that led the league in scoring and tied the team record with 55 goals on the year. 

Spokane, meanwhile, are led by Anuar Pelaez’s nine goals on the year, with Luis Gil (7) and Neco Brett (5) leading the attack for the Velocity. Former Tormenta player Nil Vinyals added three goals and three assists on the year.

While Spokane finished ninth as a team in scoring with 41 goals on the year, they were stout defensively with 10 shutouts for the year and surrendering only 32 goals in 30 games, good for third fewest in the league despite losing 6-1 in their second-to-last game of the year against Portland.

Spokane will present a challenge for Tormenta, McKeever said.

“They’re one of the most talented squads in USL League One,” he said. “They’re probably one of the favorites to go and win it but I feel al though we can match up very well with them. I think it’ll be a really exciting game. I think there will probably be more goals in the next game than there was in the last.” 

McKeever said he didn’t think Tormenta played their best game against the Velocity when they last met.

“I don’t feel as though we played particularly well in Spokane, but we have a group of road warriors that are willing to go and battle,” McKeever said. “I think there’s lots of things that we can really take away in an educational standpoint from Spokane and the last time we played them.”

“We’re excited to go and hopefully give a little bit better account of ourselves this time,” he said.

Like McKeever, Tormenta captain and midfielder Conor Doyle said Tormenta didn’t put their best foot forward when the two teams met a few weeks ago.

“They’re a really, really good team,” said Doyle. “Honestly, I don’t think we were at our best when we went there, and you can make all kinds of excuses, but I think if we play to our potential, we have all the possibility in the world of going there and getting a win.”

“We respect the crap out of them so hopefully we can go there and do what we do, score a few goals and win the game,” Doyle said.

Spokane earned the third seed by virtue of their 14-7-9 record on the year, including going 7-3-5 at home, scoring 22 goals and allowing just 14. 

Tormenta, meanwhile, finished the year 13-11-6 and 5-5-5 on the road, scoring 26 goals while allowing 25.

This will be South Georgia’s first appearance in the playoffs since their title winning playoff run in 2022. That year saw Tormenta knock off the Chattanooga Red Wolves 2-1 in the championship game held in Statesboro.

If Tormenta were to win on Sunday, they would either face Chattanooga or Portland in the semifinals. The Red Wolves are the number two seed in the tournament while Portland is seventh. If Tormenta and Portland both win, South Georgia would host the semifinal matchup. A Chattanooga win would have them hosting for the right to play in the title game. 

While Chattanooga finished as one of the top teams in the league, they have struggled down the stretch, going 2-3-1 since September 27 while Portland went 2-3-2 during that same stretch.

Tormenta wrapped up their regular season this past Saturday with a 3-0 win over Texoma FC in which Jackson Simba, Bazini and Tunbridge all scored to close out the regular season in front of 1,079 fans at Tormenta Stadium.

Kickoff for the Tormenta matchup with Spokane is set for 8 p.m. and can be streamed on ESPN+.