Greenville shut out by rivals Tormenta FC in return to league play
The Greenville Triumph Soccer Club completed a two-match week with a 2-0 loss to League One rival South Georgia Tormenta FC on Saturday night. With the loss, Greenville remained winless in 2022 league play through three matches.
After a grueling stretch of three matches in eight days, both teams played with heavy legs. The tension for the rivalry match was palpable as the players stepped on the pitch, and both sides were took early shots at each other’s nets and bodies. Within the first ten minutes, Triumph co-captain Aaron Walker sent two headers over the net. Venton Evans also keyed the attack early on the right flank, but Evans and Greenville weren’t able to convert on the early chances. In the 12th minute, Tormenta nabbed the opener after a corner set them up for their first goal of the match. Just short of the halfway mark, Tormenta scored their second goal on a series of quick passes, putting Greenville down 2-0 at the half.
Entering the second half, both teams continued to drive at each other, failing to add any points to the scoreboard. Tormenta was able to use their height to their advantage, stifling Greenville crosses with clearing headers as the match wore on. Greenville rallied for a chance in the final minutes of stoppage time, with a shot seemingly crossing the goal line past the Tormenta keeper. Ultimately, though. Greenville was not awarded the goal and Tormenta completed a shutout to grab their first win of the league season.
“That’s the game, it’s cruel but we gotta fight, we gotta learn from it and we gotta lift ourselves up and be able to compete next week for sure,” said head coach John Harkes. “I mean it’s having the patience to trust in our process you know in our performance culture and what we’re doing.”
Greenville now gets a proper week off, returning home to host their next match Friday, April 29th against Chattanooga Red Wolves SC.
Quotes:
Tyler Polak, defender: I feel like we just couldn’t just put that first one in the back of the net. Obviously with a lot of shots we felt like if we could just get one, I think more would have come. We’ve just got to get on the board sitting so we can press more and try to limit their chances.
Allen Gavilanes, winger: Honestly, I think we just have to take our chances. We create a lot of them, but we just have to be more efficient with them and be more clinical in the box. Apart from that thing we played well, but we’ve got to finish some of what we create. If we did that, I think the result could’ve been a lot different.
