Devin Lynch Doesn't Want the Glory — She Wants the Job Done

The rookie leading all Denver Summit first-years in minutes isn't chasing highlight reels. She's the reason the back line sleeps easy.

DENVER, CO — Eleven games into her first professional season, Devin Lynch still hasn't scored a goal. She's fine with that.

That's not resignation. That's not a rookie settling for less. That's a midfielder who has figured out, faster than most first-years do, exactly what her team needs from her — and it isn't goals.

"I might not be scoring and I might not be the last line sliding to save a goal," Lynch said, "but it's everything in between that." Protecting the back line. Distributing so the front line can do the scoring. The unglamorous stuff nobody chants about.

From Box-to-Box to Holding It Down

When Lynch came on the show in the preseason, she described herself as a box-to-box midfielder — somebody who wasn't going to be pushed around, somebody ready to make her presence felt up and down the pitch. That's not quite the job Nick Cushing has given her.

"I'm definitely more of a defensive midfielder in this role," Lynch said. She sits in front of the back line, often alongside Delanie Sheehan, screening rather than sprinting forward. It's a different game than the one she played at Duke. "I'm not as close to the opposition's goal as I had been in the past," she said, "but I've been enjoying it a lot."

That adjustment is the story of her rookie year. Not a demotion. A redefinition. And it's working — she's leading every rookie on this roster in minutes played, and she hasn't sat a single game.

The Plays Nobody Claps For

Ask Lynch about her best moments this season and she doesn't reach for a highlight. She reaches for a tackle nobody saw.

Before the Utah game, she told a teammate she didn't know how to slide tackle. Then she did it twice in that same match — once breaking up a ball that could have sprung a counterattack the other way. "I just thought that was funny," she said, "because yeah, it happened twice. Two slide tackles and one game after I told her I never slide tackle." Her teammate noticed. The broadcast probably didn't.

That's the job. Lynch isn't chasing the moment where the cameras find her. She's making sure the moment where they need her never becomes a goal against.

There was one game — Kate remembers it from the press box — where Lynch carried the ball box-to-box with nobody closing her down, her old college instincts kicking back in. "My entire midfield line behind me was just telling me to go," Lynch said. "I knew that they had my back." For a few seconds, the rookie defensive midfielder got to be the player she used to be. Then she went right back to holding the middle.

Learning Fast, Leaning on the Vets

Lynch didn't walk into a starting role with a plan to get there. "I just kind of came in like I have nothing to lose," she said. "I'm going to prove myself and play to the best of my ability." Eleven games later, that approach has her as the most-played rookie on the team — and she credits the locker room as much as anything for getting her there.

Janine Sonis and Carson Pickett, both established leaders, checked in on her personally from the start. Abby Smith did too. "I would say I kind of would have expected that from them," Lynch said, "and they've just proved me right so far." Having Kaleigh Kurtz and other NWSL veterans around her, talking her through games in real time, has been the difference between surviving the role and settling into it.

She's also got a courtside seat to two of the most underrated players on this roster. Watching Tash Flint from behind, Lynch doesn't hesitate: "She might be one of the strongest players I've played against. Even just on the ball, it's a one-on-one battle with her." And on Melissa Kössler in the box, the trust is total. "I almost am just turning around and walking back to the midfield," Lynch said. "I trust her ten out of ten times."

Refusing the Expansion-Team Excuse

Five months removed from preseason honeymoon energy, the locker room has been through actual adversity — the San Diego collapse, the Boston comeback loss. Lynch says those losses didn't fracture anything. If anything, they sharpened the room. "Those are kind of defining moments for our team, whether they break us or help motivate us," she said. "I think that they definitely motivated us."

What stuck with her most, though, is a mentality the team has consciously rejected. "Something that comes along with being an expansion team is giving yourself the out," Lynch said — telling yourself it's fine not to win, fine to miss the playoffs, because you're new. Denver isn't taking that out. "We're just a part of this league," she said. "We can compete with any team on any given day."

One-third of the season gone, two-thirds left, Lindsey Heaps arriving in July to share the armband and the midfield with her. Lynch is looking forward to learning from a player she sees herself in. But she's not waiting on anybody to hand her anything in the meantime. She's already doing the job. Most people just haven't noticed.

Hear the full conversation with Devin Lynch on this week's episode of The 5280 Pitch.