Photo credit: Denver Summit FC
Colorado natives combined for two of three goals in the game, while Heaps assisted Summit FC’s winner
The soccer gods smiled over a sweltering Centennial Stadium for Denver Summit FC’s third and final home opener this season and restored a slice of justice.
That seems an apt explanation for the way it beat the Portland Thorns, 2-1, with a pair of goals you would have thought were crosses. It turned the luck of a string of bad results where Summit FC somehow kept dropping points despite dominating nearly every counting stat except for the one that counts.
So it felt stingingly fitting that the first-ever goal scored at Centennial Stadium was scored by a Colorado native — Sophia Wilson — but not by a Summit FC member. She slotted a penalty home in the 25th minute which Janine Sonis gave up a few plays after a no-call on the other end was reviewed and upheld by referee Jaclyn Metz.
Sonis made up for it at the end of a lengthy first-half stoppage period, though. The ball popped out to her at the top left corner of the Thorns’ box, she took a touch and whipped what seemed like a cross into the 6-yard box. It sailed over Lindsey Heaps’s head, took a bounce and snuck into the right side netting past Mackenzie Arnold’s diving hands.
The winner from right back Natalie Means put a nearly-impossible spin on Sonis’s goal. The rookie’s first career goal was from a tight angle outside the right of the box. Like Sonis’s strike, it looked to be a cross but sailed over Arnold and into the left side netting. Ally Brazier, who was running at the back post to get on the end of the pass, looked shocked as the net reverberated, hands over her mouth as she ran to celebrate with Means.
According to Sonis, though, Means meant it.
“We’ve had players come off the bench and be the difference for us many times this season and I couldn’t be happier that it was Natalie. And she meant it, by the way,” Sonis said with a finger in the air. “She said, ‘I saw the goalkeeper was not in the right position, so I put it in the corner.’”
“She did?” Heaps asked, sitting next to Sonis in the press conference.
“She did,” Sonis said.
“Hell yeah, let’s go,” Heaps said laughing.
In her first-ever match with the club, the new captain Heaps registered the assist for Means’s winning goal. In another universe, she added a hat trick, but in this one, she narrowly missed on a few occasions.
None were closer than when she got to the end of a corner kick in the 42nd minute. Her initial header was blocked by teammate Kaleigh Kurtz, but she followed for a rebound. Arnold, on the ground after diving for the header, knew nothing about the shot that followed, but had her knee at the right place at the right time to parry Heaps’s effort off the goal line.
All 12,372 in attendance at the sold-out Centennial Stadium, perhaps even Arnold, was convinced the ball had gone in for what would have been an equalizer. The referees concluded the ball had not fully crossed the line.
Heaps was excellent in her debut as the No. 10 for a team that has been missing the seamless link between a steadfast defense and potent offense. Fans ooh-ed and aah-ed when Heaps and her supporting cast got pieces of interplay correct.
That was mostly on the right side of the field, where Ayo Oke’s and Yazmeen Ryan’s chemistry had already been growing steadily. Add Heaps’s vision and foresight into the mix, and defenses around the NWSL will struggle heavily.
Summit FC coach Nick Cushing told media that during the week, he asked Heaps how many minutes she felt physically capable of giving to her new team for her debut. She didn’t give an answer — just walked off. A gesture understood by Cushing.
“She’s a winner, right, so I think the most inspirational part for myself and Denver fans is that she came here with real purpose today,” Cushing said. “This was a really big occasion for her and it meant a lot to her. I could tell the moment when it cut back and she missed the chance in the first half, I could tell that she’d seen that one coming.”
Summit FC hits the road next Sunday for a rematch against the Washington Spirit. They battled to an exhausted scoreless draw back in March at Empower Field, where the all-time NWSL attendance record was smashed by more than 20,000.
The Spirit has won eight of its 10 games since that day and now sit in third place in the league, with a game in hand on first-place Gotham FC and two games in hand on the second-place San Diego Wave.
