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By ANDREW SIMONSON | Sports Editor

LOS ANGELES — One of Shelby County’s best is making an impact on the professional scene with a stellar season in net, and he now has hardware to back it up.

Pelham native Seth Torman won the 2024 National Independent Soccer Association (NISA) Golden Glove award as the league’s top goalkeeper.

Torman won the award in his first season in the league thanks to his dominance with the Los Angeles Force in the third tier of American professional soccer.

Torman finished the season with league-highs in save percentage with 75.61 percent and average goals conceded with 0.77 per match in 15 starts in NISA play.

He also tied with Irvine Zeta FC’s Mitch North for the most clean sheets in the league with six. Three of those shutouts came in Torman’s final five starts of the 2024 regular season.

It’s the latest chapter in Torman’s long playing journey that started on the pitch for Pelham High School.

He played football, basketball and soccer for the Panthers, but in the net as a goalkeeper, he was the Shelby County Co-Player of the Year in 2017.

During that season, he helped Pelham win the Class 6A state championship after the team fell in the semifinals each of the two prior years.

Torman posted 11 clean sheets in 2017, including four in his five playoff starts. He ended the year with 134 saves and allowed just 0.579 goals per match. Two of those shutouts were in the Final Four as the Panthers blanked Daphne and defending champion Cullman.

Torman was named a North All-Star in 2016 and played in the North-South All-Star Game that summer, and in both 2016 and 2017, he was named an All-County First Team selection and to the All-State team.

Torman then played college soccer at UAB, eventually starting for the Blazers in the 2021-22 season. During his 11 starts that year, he had a .709 save percentage with 61 saves, including a pair of 11-save outings against Kentucky and Charlotte.

After college, Torman had the chance to play professionally just down the road in Birmingham for Birmingham Legion FC. He signed a contract with the USL Championship club in 2023 after training with the team in 2022, making him the first Pelham soccer alum to sign professionally.

During that time, he also served as a goalkeeper coach for Birmingham-Southern and Hoover-Vestavia Soccer Club.

However, with the Legion, he was behind two experienced keepers in Matt VanOekel and Trevor Spangenberg on the depth chart. That led him to take his talents to southern California and join the Los Angeles Force of NISA where he made an immediate impact.

Torman will play in the NISA Championship Final against Irvine Zeta FC on Saturday, Oct. 19 at 9 p.m. central time. The match will stream for free on NISA+.