"We faded at the end": Denver Summit FC's first season ends in North Carolina

In the 94th minute, Ashley Sanchez got the ball out wide and, instead of shooting, sent it across toward the back post. Kaleigh Kurtz stretched to poke it away, the way a center back is supposed to, as Abby Smith came off her line behind her. The ball went into Denver's net.

North Carolina 1, Denver Summit FC 0.

By then it didn't change anything. Across the country, Seattle had scored in the 68th minute against Orlando, and the Reign held on to win 1-0 and take the eighth and final playoff spot. Denver needed to win and needed Seattle to lose. By the time Kurtz's touch went in, neither was happening.

It came off the one player who had been on the field for every minute of Denver's season. Kurtz has started all 30 of Denver's games and played every minute of them. A week earlier, she'd scored her first goal in a Summit shirt and done the worm in the rain at Centennial.

Denver finishes its inaugural season 10th at 11-11-8, with 41 points, six below the line. North Carolina finished ninth with 45.

"Another game that got away, another game that we should win, another game where we have the majority of good parts, but we faded at the end," head coach Nick Cushing said afterward.

"We should be two-nil up at half time"

For 20 minutes, Denver looked like the team that scored six against Louisville. The Summit had 70% of the ball in that stretch and three good looks at goal, and they took seven shots by halftime. North Carolina got out on the break a few times. The back line recovered every time but once, and that time Smith bailed them out.

It was 0-0 at the half. It was the 12th time this season Denver went into the break level. In Seattle, it was also 0-0, so everything was still in play.

Janine Sonis and Lindsey Heaps, were asked after the game what the halftime locker room was like. "I think we were fantastic in the first half, and the energy in the locker room at halftime was, let's keep doing what we're doing and really take it to them," Sonis said. "The message was very much like, we're on top of this, and we just need to continue to do what we can control, and let the outcome be the outcome at the end."

The second half didn't look like that. Passes that connected before the break stopped connecting. The two teams combined for 14 second-half shots, and only four were real chances. Denver finished the night completing 80.4% of its passes, down from 87.4% against Louisville a week earlier. After controlling 70% of the ball early, the Summit ended with 49%.

Then Jordyn Bugg scored for Seattle off a corner in the 68th minute. The Denver players didn't know. Every Decision Day game kicks off at the same time, so everyone keeps playing for something.

Cushing went to his bench late. Emma Regan replaced Devin Lynch in the 74th minute. Ally Brazier came on for Melissa Kössler, her first appearance since Aug. 22 after missing seven matches, and played 16 minutes. Olivia Thomas replaced Tash Flint in the 81st. None of it got the game going again.

Cushing called it the biggest failure of his season: not getting the team to win games it played well enough to win.

"I think it took us too long to really figure that out," he said. "Do I think that's my fault? I don't know is the answer. One thing I will do is spend the next two weeks, three weeks, four weeks really digging deep and reviewing that, because you've got to be humble, you've got to be honest, and you've got to have the work ethic to figure out why we lost leads and why we didn't win. I mean, we should be two-nil up at half time here today. And I think those small details are the difference in being 10 and being five, and maybe being five and being first."

"She's had an incredible season"

Sanchez came into Sunday on 20 goals, tied with the NWSL single-season record Temwa Chawinga set in 2024. She'd tied it on Sept. 27 against Utah, from the penalty spot, and then went three more games without scoring. Decision Day was her last chance at 21.

Smith didn't give it to her.

Sanchez took five shots, and three were on target. Smith saved all three. Of her five saves overall, the one that stood out came after Emma Regan's yellow card in the 78th minute. North Carolina had a free kick just outside the box, and Smith kept it out.

FotMob credited Smith with 1.15 goals prevented, a measure of how many goals a keeper stops compared with what the shots she faced should have produced. Her 7.88 rating was Denver's best. The only player on the field rated higher was the other keeper, Kailen Sheridan, at 8.07, who made four saves. Neither goalkeeper was beaten by an opponent all night.

Sanchez finishes tied with the record and wins the Golden Boot. She's the first American to score 20 in a regular season.

Before Cushing made the MVP case for his own player, he asked reporters to put something on the record about hers.

"I said to Ashley Sanchez at the end of the game, maybe you didn't get the record, but I hope that doesn't dilute what people see and say and what she feels about the season that she's had," he said. "Because she's had an incredible season, and a season that is really, really high level."

The rest of the box score backs up Cushing's complaint about the result. Denver had 30 touches in North Carolina's box to the Courage's 18, and won 49 duels to 30. FotMob's expected goals had the Summit at 0.94 and North Carolina at 0.55. Kössler led Denver with four shots, Flint had three, and Heaps had a team-high three key passes. Eva Gaetino made eight clearances and two blocks. Ayo Oke had four tackles and four interceptions, and her 7.7 FotMob rating tied Sonis for second on the team.

"A really clear identity"

Then Cushing made the case for Sonis.

She finished the season with 12 goals and eight assists from left back. That's 20 goal contributions, and her 12 goals tied her for fourth in the Golden Boot race.

"She's putting up attacking numbers for a defender. And okay, we play her in offensive positions, but to not only be the captain and take the penalties and lead the team in the initial part of the season, and then support Lindsey as a vice captain," Cushing said. "She's won us multiple football games this year. She has the humble, honest character to accept when she makes mistakes and be on the training field, working incredibly hard every day to improve that and absorb the knocks. And I thought tonight she was gonna score. The end of the game, she was pushing and pushing and pushing. Career year for her."

He set a higher bar for year two. Playoffs are the minimum now, he said, with a top-four finish and a home playoff game the target. In his first season at Manchester City, the team finished seventh. In the second, it finished second.

What he's proudest of is that Denver attacked everywhere. The Summit finished with 53 goals, third in the league behind Angel City and Kansas City at 54 each, and the most ever by an NWSL expansion team. "We go on the road to North Carolina, we go on the road to Utah, we go on the road to Seattle, and it's ourselves that are dictating the game," Cushing said. "The difference is we've got to execute and take chances, we've got to control counterattack better, we've got to manage games better."

Heaps, who joined midseason, said she felt both. "There's some disappointment that lies, because we know we could have went over that playoff line," she said. "But that's football sometimes as well. There's a lot of pride that I think we both have." She got in one joke before she was done. "Like Neener said, I call her Neener, by the way. That's weird. We need to have some humor right now."

Sonis was asked what she learned this season.

"I continue to learn in this league that it really does take top to bottom everyone being bought in. And what we've created here is a group of people who genuinely have the desire to be successful and win, and want to do it in a way that is entertaining and fun to watch," she said. "I'm really proud that in 10 months we've created a really clear identity for our team. And I'm really proud of the team for making this game mean something tonight, and not have had to come all the way here for what would have been a game that didn't matter come the standings. I'm just really excited to continue to build what we've started here."