Denver Summit FC Fall 3-0 to Kansas City Current as Home Woes Deepen

A dominant share of the ball, and nothing to show for it. Denver's return from the break exposed the same problem that's haunted them at DICK'S all season — against a Kansas City side that never needed the ball to win.

Commerce City, Colo. — Denver Summit FC had more of the ball, more passes, more time in the attacking third, and a sold-out crowd behind them. They also had zero big chances, three goals conceded, and a scoreline that could have been so much worse.

The 3-0 loss to the Kansas City Current on Friday night wasn't a bad bounce or an unlucky evening. It was self-inflicted, and everyone in burgundy said so afterward. First game back from a five-week break, at home, with new signing Lindsey Heaps watching her future team in person for the first time — and Denver looked nervous from the opening whistle.

Head coach Nick Cushing didn't reach for a soft word at the podium. He called it possibly the second-worst defeat of his managerial career.

A Nervous Possession Game

The stat sheet is going to confuse you if you didn't watch. Denver held 56 percent of the ball. They completed 320 passes to Kansas City's 237. They entered the final third 53 times to the Current's 42. By every measure of who controlled the game, Denver controlled it.

And it produced 0.34 expected goals. At home.

Cushing had the phrase for it. A nervous possession game. Passing sideways, looking busy, unwilling to actually do anything with the ball. Denver managed seven shots all night — three on target — and four of those seven came from outside the box. Eighteen touches in Kansas City's penalty area added up to almost nothing.

"We played right into their hands," Cushing said. "We knew exactly how they were gonna play and how they create their big chances. And we made far too many errors. We lacked composure in moments."

Captain Janine Sonis didn't dress it up either. "That performance was well below our standard," she said. "Kansas City will take advantage when they get opportunities, and they did just that."

The High Line That Broke

Here's the part that actually decided the game, and it wasn't a mystery to anyone who played in it. Denver played too high.

The line crept up, Sonis pushed all the way forward into an attacking role, and against a team engineered to sit, wait, and punish a mistake, that's a door left standing open. Kansas City walked through it all night. They were flagged offside seven times — not sloppiness, but a running count of how often they were sprinting in behind Denver's back four, trying to time the run. When they got it right, they were gone. Twelve of Kansas City's 13 shots came from inside the box.

Sonis named it herself, unprompted. "I thought we handled their in-behind threats well in the first half," she said. "And then maybe it was a case of us being too open because we were pushing players higher. They're just a team that waits until the other teams turn the ball over, and then they make you pay for it. And they're very, very good at it, as we can see by all three goals."

All three goals came the same way. A Denver giveaway, a quick ball forward, a runner in behind. The official report credited Denver with two errors leading directly to goals, Kansas City with none. Denver was dispossessed 13 times to the Current's six.

Michelle Cooper did the finishing — two shots, two goals, her first career NWSL brace, both teed up by Croix Bethune. Temwa Chawinga added the third late on a one-on-one. Cushing saw it coming and couldn't stop it.

"When we turn it over, they just play forwards into Chawinga, to Cooper, to Bethune," he said. "And if you give them one-v-ones against a goalkeeper, they're gonna win three-nil. You can see that tonight."

It could have been more. Kansas City created nine big chances to Denver's none, and Lo'eau LaBonta missed a penalty that would have made it four.

Abby Smith, In a Hailstorm

There was one player in a Denver shirt who deserved better, and the local supporters knew it. Abby Smith was named Player of the Match by the 14ers — in a 3-0 loss.

Read that again. In a game where the back line was carved open for 90 minutes, the goalkeeper was the best player on the field. That doesn't happen when things go the way they should. That happens when your keeper is standing in a hailstorm.

Smith made five saves, faced eight shots on target, and was the reason 3-0 didn't become five or six. Cushing even built her into the plan, pulling her off her line to help against Chawinga. She was the one defiant, bright thing on an ugly night. The scoreline shouldn't hide it.

No Excuses in the Room

The easy explanation was sitting right there — five weeks off, a brand-new team still learning each other. Nobody took it.

Cushing admitted he's no fan of a mid-season break, especially for a young side trying to build an identity. "The worst thing for a soccer team is to not have a game at the end of the week," he said. But he refused to hide behind it. He told his group the performance was "way below the level of this project," put the result on himself and his staff, and pointed out he's felt this exact way before — after San Diego, after Boston. The point now, he said, is to not feel like this in July, August, September, October.

Sonis echoed every word of it. Kansas City had the same break, she noted, and came in and won by three. "We turned the ball over far too easily," she said. "It's technical errors. It's little things. And it was everyone, at some point in the game. Me included."

Nobody reached for the door marked "excuse." Which, honestly, is the first thing worth holding onto here.

The Number That Won't Go Away

Denver sits on 15 points. One bad night against a Kansas City team now on 24 that hasn't drawn a single match all year — they win or they lose, and Friday they won.

But the number that lingers isn't in the box score from this game. It's the season line. Denver has scored five goals at home all season. Five. Twelve on the road, five at DICK'S. Something happens to this team when they walk into their own building, and Friday was the ugliest version of it yet.

Everything that went wrong was self-inflicted — the giveaways, the shape, the nerves. And as backwards as it sounds, that's the encouraging part. You can't coach effort into a team that got outclassed. You can absolutely drop a line that's five yards too high and clean up the turnovers. That's fixable.

They won't have long to prove it. Sonis knows it too. "We know the next challenge is coming," she said. "And it's coming fast."

The Houston Dash come to Commerce City on Sunday — the final match at DICK'S before Centennial Stadium opens on July 18 against Portland. A twelfth-place team, on a rough stretch, walking into altitude. If there's a night to finally score at home, it's this one. And it's the last chance to send the old place out the right way.

Hear the full breakdown — the Kansas City recap and the complete Houston Dash preview — on this week's episode of The 5280 Pitch, wherever you get your podcasts. Women's soccer at altitude. Listen at 5280pitch.com or search "The 5280 Pitch" on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.