Photo credit: Denver Summit FC
After last week’s thrashing of bottom-dwellers Chicago Stars, Summit FC felt a need to prove it against top competition
New franchise syndrome no longer seems to ail Denver Summit FC.
The superlatives from Sunday’s 3-0 win over Gotham FC range, but perhaps the most important was the team’s first clean sheet in 10 NWSL games. A close second: Summit FC has beaten Gotham 5-0 on aggregate this year, and own half of the league’s victories over the defending NWSL champions in 2026.
It was an incredible prove-it response to beating the league’s worst team in the Chicago Stars, 6-1, last week. The sentiment then was a mix of finally figuring out a winning mental formula, as well as a desire and need to replicate it against better competition. Both were achieved on Sunday afternoon.
“We spoke a lot this week about not relying on the 6-1 — without being disrespectful to Chicago — it’s not okay to just beat the team bottom of the league 6-1,” Summit FC coach Nick Cushing said. “Now you’ve got to take on the team that’s top of the league and believe you can go win it. Incredibly proud of the team today.”
Yuzuki Yamamoto and Olivia Thomas each followed up their first career NWSL goals from last weekend with another tally against Gotham. In the 50th minute, Ayo Oke found Yamamoto with an excellent cross, which the Japanese international hit well on the first touch into the top netting past Gotham keeper Ann-Katrin Berger.
Thomas struck in the 82nd minute on a through-ball from Yazmeen Ryan. Thomas did most of the work, carrying the ball between two Gotham defenders before rolling it to the far post past Berger’s outstretched hands.
Ryan joined the fun six minutes later. The scoring-hungry crowd started a “One more goal” chant in the 88th minute, and the story wrote itself. Ryan ripped a shot from the top of the box into the bottom left corner not even 30 seconds later. A bow tied on a wonderful Colorado day.
Kat Asman came up big on a couple of occasions in goal as the replacement for Abby Smith, who has been out injured for the past three games. No moment was bigger than a save midway through the second half, during which Sam Kerr had a breakaway stuffed by the Georgia native, who’s on loan from the Orlando Pride.
On that play, Asman said she made a mistake by hesitating on whether to come out on the initial ball played into Kerr at the outside edge of the box. She opted not to, so she had to get the save right. She praised the culture she’s walked into for being understanding of the reality that mistakes happen, and you often quickly get a chance to avenge them.
And the reward: ending a streak of allowing goals in every game since May 29.
“It’s always so difficult, the whole clean sheet thing, but it feels like it’s not difficult either. Don’t let in goals or let in goals — it’s either a zero or it’s not a zero,” Asman said “But it’s hard. It’s a lot of work. We play in a very front-footed way that sometimes leaves our back line exposed in different ways.
“… That clean sheet isn’t just the back four plus the goalkeeper, that is the entirety of the team making efforts, making plays, stopping attacks at the front. … We’ve known we haven’t had a shutout for a while, and that’s not a result of a lack of effort and care we give. … I think it’s all starting to come together.”
Cushing used four of his five substitutes to bring on rookies (Thomas, Natalie Means, Yuna McCormack and Devin Lynch), and that was when the offense looked its most free.
One moment in particular, not long before Ryan’s long-range effort, stood out: at the edge of the attacking third, three Denver players connected in a triangle with cheeky touches, backheels and the like, running circles around a tired Gotham defense. It didn’t amount to anything tangible in the moment, but the crowd could feel the effects of watching fluid, fun soccer.
“We put on four rookies to get us over the line, and I thought at 60 minutes we’re under pressure a little bit, where an experienced team can go 1-1 and then maybe take the game away from you,” Cushing said. “So I’m incredibly proud of (the subs) to just show the freedom, hunger and ambition to just go and play. I think that should be a trait of our organization that we want to go and attack everybody, and that we fear nobody.”
Summit FC, with its nine goals in two games, will hope to continue its growth on the road against another top team, although one that, like Denver, is lower in the table than it would like. Angel City sits in the final playoff spot at eighth place, two spots and two points ahead of Denver on the same number of games played.
With five points separating seventh and eighth, not to mention there are three teams battling for one playoff spot, this could be Denver’s most important game of its young history.
