Episodes

Denver Summit FC went to Houston and put up a 4-1 road win — and the possession numbers tell the whole story. 38%. 43%. 53%. That's Denver's possession in their last three games. The first two ended in losses. Friday night in Houston, this team looked completely different. This week Kate breaks down what actually changed, why the Ryan and Sheehan homecoming delivered, and whether this is finally the turn in the tide. This week on The 5280 Pitch: ⚽ The possession flip that explains everything...

Denver Summit FC heads to Shell Energy Stadium for a major NWSL road test against the Houston Dash, and this match preview comes with one big question: How different will Denver’s lineup look? On this episode of The 5280 Pitch, Kate Hanson breaks down Denver Summit FC vs Houston Dash, including Nick Cushing’s post-practice comments about expected lineup changes, what those changes could mean after two tough losses, and why this match could become an early turning point for Summit FC. Kate als...

Denver Summit FC blew a second-half lead for the second match in a row, and the pattern is starting to look like an identity. Kate Hanson breaks down the 3-2 loss to Boston Legacy at Gillette Stadium — Yazmeen Ryan's first goal in a Summit kit, Tash Flint's second screamer of the season, Carson Pickett's 15,000th NWSL minute, and the structural problem with leads that cost Denver three points for the second straight match. Boston earned their first win in franchise history on a stoppage-time go...

Denver Summit FC heads to Foxborough to face Boston Legacy FC — the only other expansion team in the league, and the only one still searching for its first win. Their first win cannot come against us. In this episode, Kate breaks down everything you need to know ahead of Sunday's road trip to Gillette Stadium. We dig into why a 0-5 Boston side is more dangerous than their record suggests, what Filipa Patão's system is actually trying to do, and why Casey Murphy is going to be a real problem for...

Denver Summit FC led the #1 team in the NWSL 2-0 at halftime. Then San Diego scored three goals in 16 second-half minutes to break a 30-match curse and walk out of Dick's Sporting Goods Park with a 3-2 win. It hurts. It also tells you something about where this team really is. In this episode, Kate breaks down the full match — from the rehearsed buildup that produced Denver's first ever home goal, to the second-half collapse, to the Pickett own goal that sealed it. We dig into the formation sw...

Denver Summit FC hosts San Diego Wave FC Saturday, April 25 at Dick's Sporting Goods Park — and I'm calling it: Denver wins. The league-leading Wave come to Commerce City on Denver Unite Night in snow, rain, and 33-degree weather at 5,280 feet of elevation. In this preview, I break down why altitude, the Cuiabá travel, and Kenzo Dali's possession game all point to a Summit upset. What's covered: Why San Diego's second-half scoring pattern collapses at altitude Abby Smith's 5.05 goals prevent...

Four days after ACL surgery. Pain meds. 63,000 fans. And Malala on the field. That's how Jasmine Aikey experienced Denver Summit FC's historic home opener — not as a player, but as a rookie who tore her ACL at a national team camp before playing a single professional minute. In her first podcast interview since the injury, Denver Summit FC forward Jasmine Aikey sits down with Kate to tell the whole story. From growing up in Palo Alto and homeschooling at 13 to keep pace with youth national team camps, to graduating Stanford with a 3.97 GPA in computer science, winning the Hermann Trophy, and now rebuilding her knee in Denver while her teammates play games without her. She also talks about the junior year nobody covers — playing center back through undiagnosed osteitis pubis, breaking her fibula, having surgery with a plate and screws, and then coming back to lead the nation in points her senior year. And she answers the question she gets asked constantly right now: what does …

A defender who scored 21 goals in college. Her first professional contract. And somehow, she ended up exactly where she always dreamed. Kate Hanson sits down with Denver Summit FC defender Natalie Means (#4) — Georgetown's do-everything wingback who just made the jump to the NWSL in the club's inaugural season. Kaleigh Kurtz personally vouched for her. The stats speak for themselves. And after this conversation, you'll understand why this rookie is one of the most interesting players on the ro...

Five games in and Denver Summit FC has allowed just three goals. Three. Tied for the best defensive record in the entire NWSL. For an expansion team in year one, that is not luck — that is a system. And this week we're breaking down exactly how Nick Cushing has built it. We're going deep on Saturday's 0-0 draw at Seattle Reign — how Denver neutralized an unbeaten team, what Abby Smith is doing that puts her in the NWSL's elite goalkeeper conversation, and why the Pickett-Kurtz center back partn...

Denver Summit FC just broke the NWSL attendance record — 63,004 fans at Mile High — and that's only part of the story after four games. Kate Hanson breaks down where this team actually stands: Melissa Kössler's historic goal-scoring run, Abby Smith's league-leading numbers in net, a defensive turnaround nobody saw coming, and a very special guest who was on the field Saturday to witness all of it. Plus a preview of Saturday's road match at Seattle Reign. What we cover: ⚽ Melissa Kössler: 3 go...

Denver Summit FC goalkeeper Abby Smith is the NWSL league leader in saves — and she's just getting started. Kate Hanson sits down with the two-time NWSL champion on The 5280 Pitch to talk about one of the most compelling stories in women's soccer right now. Abby opens up about how a high-energy kid from Plano, Texas found her way into goal, set the program record at the University of Texas with 30 career shutouts, and spent nearly a decade competing across six professional clubs in the NWSL and...

Denver Summit FC just beat the defending NWSL champions 2-0. Clean sheet. First win in franchise history. And Melissa Kössler — "The Clinician" — scores for the third game in a row to make NWSL history. But we're not skipping Orlando. Kate breaks down the 1-1 draw against the Pride, why Abby Smith's 10-save, Save of the Week performance is the only reason Denver came away with a point, and why giving up that Barbra Banda birthday goal still stings. Then it's the Gotham recap: how Denver's form...

Devin Lynch’s road to Denver Summit FC starts here. In this episode of The 5280 Pitch — Women’s Soccer at Altitude, host Kate Hanson sits down with Denver Summit FC rookie midfielder Devin Lynch to talk about her journey from Duke University to the NWSL. Devin shares what it’s like entering the league as a rookie and joining Denver’s expansion team during its historic inaugural season. In this episode we talk about: Devin’s soccer roots growing up in Illinois Her development at Duke and the...

Denver Summit FC blew up their roster one week into the inaugural NWSL season... In 24 hours, the Summit acquired USWNT forward Yazmeen Ryan and midfielder Delanie Sheehan from the Houston Dash in a blockbuster trade, then announced the signing of Japanese international Yuzuki Yamamoto from WE League champions Tokyo Verdy Beleza. Three proven players. One week in. Before a single home game has been played. Kate breaks down what each signing actually means — Ryan's versatility and why two NWSL ...

Denver Summit FC lost their first-ever professional game 2-1 at Bay FC on March 14, 2026, but the story is so much bigger than the scoreline. In the 20th minute, Melissa Kössler headed home the first goal in club history off a beautiful Carson Pickett ball and Janine Sonis cross. Six minutes later, Sonis was sent off with a controversial red card that changed everything. Kate breaks down the VAR decision that upgraded a yellow to a straight red, why the call didn't meet the IFAB standard for ex...

BONUS EPISODE: Carson Pickett joins the show! Carson Pickett has been in the NWSL since 2016. She's played 185 games. She's seen the league go from $8,000 salaries and host families to expansion teams selling out NFL stadiums. And now she's helping build Denver Summit FC from the ground up. In this episode, Carson talks about why she chose Denver as a veteran in a league that's finally treating players like professionals. We cover her rookie year in Seattle, what clicked when she got to North ...

Denver Summit FC plays their first-ever NWSL game on Saturday, March 14th against Bay FC at PayPal Park. This is it—the real thing. In this episode, I break down what to expect from Bay FC, including their massive $1.1 million signing of USWNT midfielder Claire Hutton. Bay struggled to score last season (26 goals, lowest in the league), but they were organized defensively and just acquired one of the best defensive midfielders in the NWSL. I cover Denver's likely starting XI—Smith in goal, Pic...

Kaleigh Kurtz has played every single minute of every game for four consecutive NWSL seasons. What most people didn't know — she finished last season with a back fracture she didn't even know about. In her first interview since joining Denver Summit FC, the veteran defender sits down with Kate Hanson to talk about why she walked away from eight years at the NC Courage for an expansion team, what training at altitude has actually felt like, and what the Coachella preseason revealed about this roster. She breaks down the chemistry forming between veterans and rookies, calls out Natalie Means and Olivia Thomas by name as players to watch, and gets genuinely emotional talking about playing in front of 45,000 fans at Mile High on March 28th — a number she says will change the way the game is physically played.

Coachella Breakdown: What We Learned From Denver’s 7-Goal Preseason The Denver Summit wrapped up their first-ever preseason tournament at the Coachella Valley Invitational with two wins, seven goals scored, and plenty to talk about. In this episode of The 5280 Pitch: Women’s Soccer at Altitude, we break down what actually stood out from Denver’s 2–0 win over Utah and their 5–2 shootout against San Diego — and what it tells us about this expansion team heading into the March 14 opener against Bay FC. Match 1: Utah Royals (2–0) Denver’s first-ever match as a club wasn’t flashy — it was organized. Key Takeaways: Defensive shape was compact and disciplined Possession looked intentional, not frantic Melissa Koestler opened the scoring with a clinical finish Rookie Olivia Thomas came off the bench and scored in her professional debut Utah finished 11th last season, so this wasn’t an elite test — but it was a clean execution of a game plan. For a team playing to…

Jordan Angeli co-founded For Denver FC and helped bring the NWSL to Colorado. In this episode, she tells the full story of how Denver Summit FC went from a Twitter DM in 2023 to 45,000 tickets sold for the inaugural home opener—before playing a single game. We cover the entire journey: organizing watch parties for a team that didn't exist, convincing Rob Cohen to become majority owner, bringing Peyton Manning and Mikaela Shiffrin into the ownership group, and what it meant when Lindsey (Horan) Heaps chose to come home to play for Denver Summit FC. Jordan is a Colorado native, former NWSL player (Boston Breakers, Washington Spirit, Western New York Flash), and co-host of the Soccerwise podcast. She's now part-owner and ambassador for Denver Summit FC. This is the story of how a grassroots movement became a professional sports franchise in one of the fastest NWSL expansion timelines ever.

Denver Summit FC didn't mess around building their back line. They went out and got veterans. Championship winners. Players who've actually won stuff in this league. In this episode, we break down all eight defenders on the Summit roster—from Kaleigh Kurtz's ironwoman durability (played every single minute for four straight years) to Carson Pickett's attacking threat from fullback (3 goals, 2 assists in 2025), Janine Sonis coming home to Colorado with Olympic gold, and the young talent like Ayo ...

Denver Summit FC's most important month. Six matches. Four at home. This is what they've been building toward. In this episode, we break down August's schedule match by match—starting with the expansion rematch against Boston Legacy FC, then North Carolina Courage's structured attack (featuring Manaka Matsukubo's 33 shots on target), the altitude revenge game against Utah Royals' 345 tackles, two critical road tests at San Diego Wave (85% passing accuracy) and Portland Thorns (297 shots), and c...

May is where the Denver Summit stop being new — and start being tested. In this episode of The 5280 Pitch: women’s soccer at altitude, we break down Denver’s brutal May schedule and explain why this road-heavy stretch is the true examination of their inaugural NWSL season. Five matches. Four on the road. Every opponent asking a different question. This episode walks match by match through Boston, Houston, Orlando, Utah, and Racing Louisville — not to predict results, but to explain what each game reveals about Denver’s growth, adaptability, and identity. If March was the introduction and April was the adjustment, May is the gauntlet — and how Denver handles it shapes everything that comes next. Subscribe for weekly Denver Summit and NWSL analysis, and stick with us as we build this season match by match.

The Denver Summit open their inaugural NWSL season with a challenging first half of the schedule. In this episode of The 5280 Pitch, we break down every match in the opening stretch — key opponents, player matchups to watch, and how home games at altitude differ from life on the road for an expansion team.