We are officially 30 days away from Denver Summit FC’s inaugural game at Empower Field at Mile High.
The team is generating mountains of excitement across the Front Range, most notably, among the very girls who hope to one day join them on the field.
Real Colorado is a nationally recognized club soccer team that develops boys and girls ages 3 to 19 and has developed three of the players currently on the Summit.
Goalkeeper Jordan Nytes, defender Janine Sonis, and midfielder Meg Boade (who is training with the Summit) all played for Real Colorado before making it to one of soccer’s biggest stages.
Lindsey Heaps, the U.S. Women’s National Team captain and Summit midfielder, also grew up in Golden and played for rival youth club, the Colorado Rush.
Now, the club teams’ current members are drawing inspiration from their former training partners.
“It motivates me more,” said Real Colorado midfielder, Tuula Tarkka, a high school junior from Highlands Ranch who has verbally committed to play soccer for the University of Kansas. “To see that some players from the club that I'm at are on [the Summit]; it just pushes me more to work harder, because playing professionally is definitely a huge goal of mine.”
Tarkka, along with her longtime friend, Sarah Schecter, who is Real Colorado’s goalkeeper, will both be going to the Summit’s home opener against the Washington Spirit on March 28.
It’s a date Real Colorado’s CEO Jared Spires knew the team couldn’t miss.
“Our state association scheduled games on opening day, and the first thing was, ‘Hey, we're canceling our game, right?’ Because we got to go to that,” he told Denver7, laughing.
“I feel like it's almost a huge confidence builder,” Schecter said. “[Jordan Nytes] trains with the same people I did — same coaches, everything. So, you really just get to envision yourself where somebody who was your same age few years ago is now.”
Schecter is also a junior and has played for Real Colorado since she was 10.
She verbally committed to play soccer for the Baylor University in September.
“I think [our current players] get to see it, touch it, see the players, and those players will come out and interact with them,” Spires said. “[Having the Summit here allows their goals] to become real. It's not this dream of what might this look like. They get to see it.”
Spires says he coached Janine Sonis and Meg Boade while they were with Real Colorado and anticipates once the team gets the new season underway, Summit FC will become a big draw to their mission.
“They've really expressed a desire to interact with the youth clubs all over Colorado,” Spires said. “So, I would expect there to be interaction, and would hope there would be, because these are their fans.”
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** game played at DICK's Sporting Goods Park
other home matches scheduled to be played at Centennial Stadium