Denver Summit FC's first season, by the numbers

Denver Summit FC scored 53 goals in its first NWSL season, more than every team in the league except Angel City and Kansas City, who finished with 54 apiece. It also finished 10th, six points out of the last playoff spot, and those two facts together tell you most of what you need to know about this year: the Summit could score with almost anyone, and they had a hard time holding on to what they built.

The final record was 11-11-8, good for 41 points, and Denver stayed in the playoff race until the last day of the season, when it needed a win at North Carolina and a Seattle loss to Orlando. Neither one happened.

The season started in a place most expansion teams never get to play. On March 28, 63,004 people came to Empower Field at Mile High for Denver's first home game, a 0-0 draw with the Washington Spirit, and that crowd is still the largest the NWSL has ever drawn for a single match. 5280 Pitch host Kate Hanson was there with her family, and she has called it a core memory for all of them.

Where the points went

If one number explains the season, it's 20. That's how many points Denver gave away from winning positions, spread across eight matches where the Summit led and didn't win, four of which ended in draws and four in losses.

A lot of those points slipped away at the very end. At Boston in May, Denver was up 2-1 in the 77th minute and left with a 3-2 loss after conceding in the 90th minute and again four minutes into stoppage time, against a team that finished 13th. Against Bay in September, the Summit led 2-0 in the 57th minute at Centennial Stadium and drew 2-2 when Taylor Huff scored five minutes into stoppage time. Hanson was in the stands for that one, because her daughter's soccer team walked out with the players as the game's mascots. And the season ended on a 94th-minute own goal at North Carolina, after Seattle had already locked up the eighth and final playoff spot.

Those three games alone made the difference. If Denver holds its leads at Boston and against Bay, and the Decision Day loss is a draw instead, the Summit finish with 47 points and a place in the playoffs.

When 5280 Pitch reporter Mariah Dean asked general manager Curt Johnson at the end-of-season press conference whether the year had been a success, he didn't try to dress it up as one. "It's immense pride in the foundation that is here, the identity that the team has, the fact that it resonates in the community," Johnson said. "With that said, we're sitting here empty, right? So that's a hollow feeling. It's both." He set the bar for next season at a top-four finish, at minimum.

Head coach Nick Cushing would take this problem over the alternative, at least. "I'd much rather be in leading positions and losing them than not being able to get into leading positions," he said, and he made clear he isn't planning to stop attacking to fix it. The work this offseason, in his words, is about "very, very small details," like how high the back line sits and how many players stay behind the ball.

Who they beat, and who beat them

Denver's results against individual teams were strange in both directions. The Summit beat Gotham, the team that finished first in the league, both times they played, 2-0 on the road in only their third game ever and 3-0 at Centennial in September. Gotham gave up just 23 goals all season, and five of them came against Denver. Cushing called that home win "the marker of our team," the game where the Summit scored, absorbed pressure and proved they could take on the best in the league.

The other end of the table was harder to explain. Denver took zero points out of a possible 12 against Kansas City and North Carolina, including a 4-1 loss in Kansas City in September where Haley Hopkins scored a hat trick. Against Boston and Bay, who finished 13th and 14th, the Summit picked up only two points out of 12.

Home is where things came together, especially once the team moved into Centennial Stadium in July. Denver went 6-2-2 there, taking 20 of a possible 30 points, and the first game in the building set the tone. Portland went ahead on a Sophia Wilson penalty, Sonis equalized deep into first-half stoppage time, and rookie Natalie Means won it in the 86th minute. It was the only time all year Denver came from behind to win.

Janine Sonis' season

The best individual story of the year belongs to the left back. Sonis led Denver with 12 goals and eight assists, giving her a hand in 20 of the team's 53 goals, and she did it after a season that started with her being sent off midway through the first half of the opener at Bay, the only red card Denver received all year.

Her goals tended to show up when nobody else's did. Melissa Kössler, who scored the first goal in club history, went 126 days without scoring between late April and late August, and Denver scored 19 goals in that stretch. Sonis had eight of them, including two at Houston and two at home against Orlando during the team's only back-to-back wins of the season, the equalizer against Portland in the first game at Centennial and a 94th-minute winner against Utah in August.

Her 12 goals tied her for fourth in the league with Temwa Chawinga, Haley Hopkins and Trinity Rodman. She's a finalist for both NWSL MVP and Defender of the Year, and no other player is up for both. The winners will be announced Nov. 18 on ESPN2.

Cushing, who first coached her at Manchester City in 2018, said she has "made a step in her career into being almost world class as an outside back," and that the challenge now is to do it again next season. Hanson has made the case on the show all fall that Sonis was Denver's most valuable player this year, and her numbers make most of that argument on their own.

What comes next

Johnson said the club wants to add top talent at every line, attack, midfield and defense, and that Denver is still pursuing some of the best players in the world. The clearest need is up front. Denver created 79 big chances this season by FotMob's count, tied for second in the league, but missed 48 of them, the third-most of any team, and its leading scorer was a defender.

The foundation is there, along with a training facility, a sold-out stadium and a style of play that put Denver third in the league in goals in its first year. Players report back on Jan. 4, and the target for year two, by the general manager's own standard, is the top four.