Path to Pro: Tormenta's Sam Jones Makes His First Team Debut
The goalkeeper has played at every level for the club over the last nine years
With USL League One pushing sustainability and development of local talent, many clubs are still behind when it comes to having a robust youth and academy system.
South Georgia Tormenta is not one of those clubs.
At one point, the club fielded a youth academy, and a USL League Two pre-professional side to go along with its professional first team in USL League One. In fact, the club fielded its pre-professional team for three seasons prior to the foundation of its first team as an inaugural member of USL League One in 2019.
And while the USL League Two side went on hiatus after the 2022 season with no announced plans to return, Tormenta still operates a robust, multi-level youth academy system. The club bills the system as “the only youth soccer club featuring a direct path to a professional team in South Georgia and the Low Country.”
It was through this system that South Georgia Tormenta goalkeeper Sam Jones emerged.
The 23 year old signed his first professional contract midway through the 2024 season, the first homegrown player to turn pro in the club’s history. However, an injury derailed his chances to earn any minutes the rest of that season.
Returning for the 2025 season, Jones finally made his professional debut last week in Open Cup action against Harbor City FC.
Jones started his journey through the Tormenta system in 2016 with Tormenta FC Academy, which led to NCAA Division I soccer at Winthrop University. While at Winthrop, Jones returned to Statesboro to play for Tormenta 2 in USL League Two.
While he’s not the first former Tormenta 2 player to turn pro, he’s the first former Tormenta Academy player to sign a professional contract with the first team, and certainly the first to play for all levels of the club’s structure.
“It meant a lot for me to make my pro debut after coming from the academy and playing as a young kid and kind of growing up with Tormenta,” he said.
“Hopefully I can be an example to other kids in the academy right now who are dreaming of playing for the first team, going to college, getting a degree, coming back and playing and excelling in that area.”
Jones is fully embedded in the Tormenta system. In addition to his professional goalkeeper status, he also serves as the goalkeeper coach for the club’s USL Academy and USL W League teams.
With league star goalkeeper Austin Pack also on the team, Jones typically serves as a backup to the 31 year old, now in his 10th professional season. And while Pack was a workhorse with Charlotte Independence, racking up 71 appearances over the last two seasons, a backup always has to remain sharp and ready to step in. And Head Coach Ian Cameron gave Jones that shot in the Open Cup match.
South Georgia Tormenta is back in action in regular season play on Saturday, March 29, hosting Union Omaha, followed by hosting Foro FC in the second round of the Open Cup on Tuesday, April 1. Given the schedule congestion, we’d expect to see Jones again sooner rather than later.