DENVER — Denver Summit FC’s inaugural season just keeps delivering.
On Saturday, fans packed Centennial Stadium for the first time to witness a day for the Colorado women’s soccer history books, starring a trio of hometown heroes worth braving a heatwave for. The Summit pulled off a 2-1 upset win over the Portland Thorns, tied for second in the league standings, led by two Coloradan captains up against another local star on the other side of the pitch.
Headlining the day was the long-awaited return of Lindsey (Horan) Heaps to the NWSL after five years away from the league while playing in France. A giant Colorado flag reading, “Welcome home, Lindsey,” spread across a section of the stadium during warm-ups, held by hundreds of fans donning jerseys with the Golden, Colorado, native’s name and number on the back.
This story of Heaps’ return to the league truly writes itself. Her first match came against the only other NWSL club Heaps has represented, the Thorns. She spent five seasons in Portland, led the team to the 2017 NWSL Championship and won the league’s MVP award in 2018. Many assumed that time in Portland would be her only time in the NWSL, but the growth of the league, paired with the pull of an expansion team in her home state, brought her back on a four-year contract with Denver.
As would be expected of an Olympic gold medal-winning team captain, Heaps’ impact on the 11th-ranked first-year expansion team was immediate. Heaps had six good looks at the goal against her former team — a Summit single-match high this season — and though she didn’t find the net herself, she assisted Denver rookie Natalie Means’ game-winning goal in the 86th minute.
“I think when you have an expansion side, you have new players coming together from all over the place, and another new player coming in and integrating, it’s a really, really tough task to get everyone meshed together,” Heaps said after the win. “Today, you see some really good football being played… I’m so grateful to be a part of this club, and the way that Janine [Sonis] and the rest of the team welcomed me in.”
Up until this point in the season, Highlands Ranch, Colo., product Janine Sonis has donned the captain’s band for Denver. With the arrival of Heaps, many wondered which local legend would take on the captain responsibilities for the remainder of the inaugural season.
“It wasn’t really a conversation,” Sonis said of Heaps taking over as Summit FC’s captain upon her arrival to the team. “She’s an incredible leader, and I have absolutely no problem putting that armband on her. We have a great relationship. There’s so much mutual respect and admiration that goes both ways, and I think it says a lot that there wasn’t a conversation that was needed, it was just understood. She’s been very clear with me that just because she’s wearing [the captain’s band] doesn’t change my responsibility.”
After decades of top women’s soccer talent coming out of Colorado, this inaugural Summit FC season has felt to many like a continuous celebration of the long-overlooked women’s sports scene in the state. Heaps’ return came on the same day as the opening of the newly constructed Centennial Stadium, the club’s temporary home while their permanent venue at Santa Fe Yards in Denver is under construction.
Heaps’ return and a venue constructed solely for Colorado’s only professional women’s sports team, Summit FC manager Nick Cushing says, are direct products of the investment in this expansion team.
“I came here on June 1, 2025, and this was just one big dirt field,” Cushing said of the now Centennial Stadium. “And 13 months later, we just won a game in the stadium. It’s an amazing, amazing occasion. It’s just another step forward, and we have to continue to harness and use this.”
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Despite the upper-90-degree temperatures plaguing Colorado, fans packed the new stadium just as they have the Summit’s other two home venues in the greater Denver area this season.
“When you look at the list of players that have come out of Colorado and gone on to continue to play, it’s pretty incredible, and it was just so overdue for this to be here,” Sonis said. “People are showing up because they’ve wanted this.”
In this match against the team that was tied for second place in league standings heading in, Sonis proved that her impact on this Summit squad reaches beyond leadership. Down 1-0 most of the first half, Sonis tied things up in the 53rd minute, marking her sixth goal on the season for Denver.
“It’s very special to do what she’s done in the sense of being the captain, lead from the front, and allow somebody like Lindsey [Heaps] to come in and push her right to the front,” Cushing said of Sonis. “She deserves everything, Janine [Sonis] does. She’s a really high-impact player for us at the moment in the way she plays, but also in the way she leads. She’s scoring goals, as well, so that’s really important.”
The contest was also a homecoming for Heaps’ former Portland teammate and Windsor, Colo., local Sophia Wilson, who received an overwhelming amount of cheers from her fellow Coloradans during lineup announcements.
“Even though it didn’t feel like a home crowd — they were definitely very much against all of us, me included — it’s always good to get a goal for this team and to come back home and play in front of all my friends and family,” said Wilson, who scored Portland’s only goal of the match on a penalty kick in the 25th minute.
“It’s so exciting to have a team here — it feels surreal coming back and playing here. I think the city is very deserving of a team. It’s a soccer city, specifically a women’s soccer city, and so much time and effort has clearly been put into building the stadium and creating a team from scratch.”
That team from scratch is shaping up to have an incredibly promising future — and with the arrival of Heaps, a promising present.
“I think the hardest part of my job is picking the team at the moment,” Cushing said post-match. “The likes of Emma Regan, Natalie Means and Carson Pickett, you know, the subs are working. The attitude and application this week — and yesterday in particular — of our bench and non-star players, I’m telling you, is the best in the league. If there is a better attitude, application, or work ethic in non-playing players, it only matches what we’ve got.”
Denver will face another challenge this week in the top-ranked Washington Spirit, a rematch of the Summit’s inaugural home match in front of 63,000 fans that ended in a scoreless draw. If the Thorns win was any indication, Heaps’ arrival has given the Summit a mid-season boost to carry them to a successful debut season.
