DENVER — The duality of competition demands a result - a winner and a loser.
On Saturday in San Jose, the Denver Summit Football Club experienced the harsh reality that making history can be a double-edged sword.
In the franchise’s first-ever match, they saw Melissa Kössler score their first-ever goal - and ultimately, they suffered their first-ever loss at the hands of Bay FC, 2-1.
“I really hate losing,” said Summit FC head coach Nick Cushing moments after the conclusion of the match, the end result tainting his perspective of their inaugural match.
“It’s tough now because I know the desire and the ambition that this team has and the organization has,” said Cushing, before adding a silver lining: “It’s game one, nothing’s lost yet.”
The brightest moment of the match came 20 minutes into play when left back Carson Pickett released captain Janine Sonis down the left side of the pitch with a perfectly weighted pass - Sonis then pinged a cross towards the six-yard box, where Kössler thumped the ball into the back of the net.
“We knew she was going to be a threat in the league,” said Cushing. “We knew if we made chances and created her some chances, she was going to score.”
At the time that tied the match at 1-1, the Summit had regained momentum. But a mere six minutes later, the same effort and passion that fueled their debut became their undoing.
After VAR review, captain Janine Sonis received the club’s first-ever red card. She was sent off the pitch, and the Summit played the remainder of the match down to 10 players. Oddly enough, the Boston Legacy - who also played their first-ever NWSL match on Saturday - also received a red card in their 1-0 loss to Gotham FC. So both expansion teams played their first matches with a player disadvantage and lost by one goal on the same day.
Neat.
“It was really hard,” said defender Kaleigh Kurtz, who received the captain’s arm band after Sonis exited the match. “[Sonis] is an amazing leader; she’s our captain. To lose a player who has that kind of experience and that kind of leadership is really challenging.”
Valiantly, the Summit rose to the challenge. After giving up what would be the game-winning goal to Bay FC defender Joelle Anderson in the 30th minute, they played the rest of the match to a scoreless draw.
That’s 70-ish minutes of tough, rugged NWSL football played at a disadvantage that Denver managed to navigate without conceding a goal.
Additionally, six Summit players made their NWSL debuts against Bay FC - and four more made their professional soccer debuts.
“The fact that we went down, and had to play 70 minutes [down to 10 players], and leaned on a lot of our young players today, I think this is an amazing step in the right direction,” said Kurtz. “There’s so much to be proud of with this group.”
“We have a special group, and this is a first,” said goalkeeper Abby Smith. “Learn from it, embrace it, and rally around each other. We have each other to lean on.”
At some point, the Denver Summit will be able to look back on their maiden match with fondness - but as coach Cushing suggests, that may take some time.
For now, the team has to re-group and move forward. They travel to Florida to face the Orlando Pride on Friday, March 20th, which starts a run of three matches in nine days - culminating in their record-breaking home opener at Empower Field against the Washington Spirit.
“We have the whole crowd behind us in Denver,” says Smith. “We’re really going to take this to heart, learn from it, grow from it, and I’m very proud of this group. We can turn around and go back home and focus on the next game.”
