Denver Summit FC 2-1 Seattle Reign: The Lead Held This Time, and Now Comes Kansas City

Photo Credit: @victorography_20

Three days after Bay FC came back from two goals down at Centennial, Seattle tried to do the same thing. This time Denver didn't let it happen. Here's what stood out from Saturday night, and why Kansas City on the road is the biggest test left on the schedule.

An hour of rain and lightning pushed back kickoff at Centennial Stadium on Saturday night. Then the Denver Summit went out and beat Seattle Reign 2-1 in front of a sold-out crowd, and honestly, the score doesn't show how much of that game we controlled.

The win stretches our unbeaten run to five, the longest of the season. We're still 10th on 35 points, but now we're two behind Seattle and three behind Kansas City, who hold eighth and the last playoff spot on 38. And we play Kansas City on Saturday.

Seattle had one shot in the first half

One. By the end of the night it was 16 shots to eight, 10 on target to four, and 31 touches in Seattle's box to their 10. Those 10 shots on target tie our season high.

Nick Cushing thought we should have been ahead even earlier. "Thought we probably should have been one-nil up before we were one-nil up," he said after the match.

What I liked most was how deliberate it was. Seattle pressed with their nine and ten on our two holding midfielders and sent their wingers at our center backs. So instead of forcing the ball through the middle, we went wide, overloaded one side and switched it. "Instead of playing risky where their eight bodies were, we just played round them," Cushing said.

You can see it in the passing. We completed 121 passes in the final third, and Seattle completed 62. Janine had 79 touches, more than anyone on the field, and created five chances from left back. KK completed 50 of her 55 passes, which is pretty much what she does every week. She's started all 25 league games this season and, according to Opta, hasn't missed a single minute. That's 2,250 minutes. On an expansion team that has moved pieces around all year, that kind of steadiness at center back is a big deal.

The goals

Delanie Sheehan opened the scoring in the 44th minute off a Lindsey Heaps pass, her first goal since May. Whether it was a cross or a shot is still up for debate in that locker room, and Delanie and Tash Flint went back and forth about it in the press conference. For what it's worth, Opta counts it as a shot.

Tash made it 2-0 in the 50th off a pass from Janine. She took seven shots and put six of them on target, double her previous best this season. And she still thought she left some out there. "I'd like to say I could have had three or four tonight," she said, "but what we did was enough and got us over the line."

That goal was our 13th this season in the first 15 minutes of a second half, which the club says is the most in the league. This team comes out of halftime ready to go, and it has all year.

Then Seattle scored, and it felt like Wednesday

If you were at Centennial on Wednesday, you know the feeling. We were up 2-0 on Bay FC and walked out with a 2-2 draw. So when Brittany Ratcliffe came off the Seattle bench in the 54th minute and scored in the 55th, it was hard not to think about it.

Seattle went long after that. They'd taken one shot in the first half and took seven in the second. Cushing was straight about it: "Seattle caused us some problems. They went really direct and they went diagonals. We've got full backs that are learning the game."

But we held. Delanie won three tackles and blocked two shots. Abby Smith made three saves and had nine recoveries. And when Maddie Mercado lined up a free kick in the 92nd minute, it got blocked.

Tash didn't sugarcoat the goal we gave up. "I think we let the goal back in quite easy, to be honest," she said. Still, three days after Bay, the same situation ended with three points. That's the part that stuck with me.

I also have plenty to say about Sofia Huerta's challenge on Yaz Ryan in the 47th minute, which I think should have been a red card. I get into that on this week's episode.

Kansas City hasn't lost at home

Here's the problem with Saturday. KC is 8-4-0 at CPKC Stadium and has taken 28 of its 38 points there. On the road they're 3-1-9. They're basically two different teams depending on where they play.

We're 3-4-5 on the road, and our attack drops off away from Centennial too. We average about three shots on target per road game, compared to almost five across the whole season. We put 10 on target against Seattle. We're going to need a lot more than three in Kansas City.

The last time we played them was July 3 at Dick's Sporting Goods Park, and they beat us 3-0. Michelle Cooper scored twice, both off Croix Bethune assists, and Temwa Chawinga added the third. KC created nine big chances that night. We didn't create one. That was also before Lindsey Heaps had played a minute for us. She has two goals and three assists in eight games since, and she's had a hand in a goal in each of her last three.

Chawinga is back after missing about six weeks this summer, and she has 10 goals in 14 games. Bethune is the name to watch on the availability report. She hasn't been in KC's squad for their last two games and was listed with a hip issue last week. If she's out, KC is missing the player who set up both of Cooper's goals against us.

There's a lot going on off the field in Kansas City, too. They parted ways with sporting director Vlatko Andonovski on September 7, traded rookie forward Gianna Paul, and lost 2-0 at San Diego on Friday. Their head coach is Chris Armas, a name Colorado soccer fans will remember from his time coaching the Rapids.

What a win would do

If we win Saturday, we're level with KC on 38 points and ahead of them on goal difference, which is the league's first tiebreaker. If Seattle also fails to beat Boston Legacy on Friday, we move into eighth. A draw leaves us three back with four games to go. A loss puts us six back.

After KC, it's Chicago on the road on October 4, then Angel City and Louisville at home on October 17 and 24, and North Carolina to close the season.

Kickoff Saturday is 10:30 a.m. Mountain on CBS and Paramount+. You can play out every scenario on the Denver Summit FC Playoff Tracker at 5280pitch.com. The full breakdown of the Seattle win, including postgame audio from Nick, Tash and Delanie, is on this week's episode of The 5280 Pitch on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube.