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Co-captain Janine Sonis is the ‘heart and soul’ of Denver Summit in a crucial expansion year
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- Co-captain Janine Sonis is the ‘heart and soul’ of Denver Summit in a crucial expansion year
Denver Summit co-captain Janine Sonis may have dropped to her knees after converting a game-winning free kick in the dying minutes of the Continental Divide derby with the Utah Royals on Saturday, but her name has only been lifted up since she signed with the NWSL expansion team.
Sonis and the Summit have been a match made in the Rocky Mountains.
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While the team's marquee signing was U.S. women's national team midfielder Lindsey Heaps , who has served as club co-captain alongside Sonis since joining the team midseason from OL Lyonnes in France, it is Sonis who is undeniably the heart and soul of the club. She's been with the team since their first game and has shown nothing but consistent, clear-eyed leadership through a slew of highs and lows as the Summit settles into the league.
"To have that kind of performance after a three-game week. We've been punched in the nose a couple of times in the last few games. We've played really good football and it just really hasn't fallen for us," she told broadcast duo JP Dellacamera and Jill Loyden following the 2-1 home thriller. The victory snapped a three-game winless streak.
"You know how this game is. At some point the cover comes off the goal, and thankfully tonight was a night for us. But the league standings are so, so tight, so we know how important these three points are, and I'm really hoping that this just slingshots us into the next couple of weeks."
The Summit are still in the playoffs hunt, in 10th in the NWSL standings, but the team's scrapbook of NWSL firsts is filling quickly, and Sonis has been central to that.
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It hasn't always been exemplary, either. When the Summit earned the first red card in club history in the first 27 minutes of their first regular season match, it was at the upturned boot of Sonis against Bay FC. It was the kind of blow that tilted the match in real time, but that, with the relief of hindsight midway through the season, formed the kind of scar tissue that Summit supporters can now romanticize, especially considering what the 31-year-old Canadian international has done for the team since.
In this week's "Three Words," a weekly column that takes key players, teams and moments in global women's soccer and boils them down to three words, we get into how Sonis has become Denver's…
Heart and soul
Listed as a fullback but with the roots of an attacker, Sonis is the club's top goalscorer with eight this season, along with three assists. Half have been from a set piece of some kind: three penalties and a spectacular free kick Saturday night. That also inserts her in the Golden Boot conversation in seventh place (behind a three-way tie for third).
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Sonis is a Canada international, but she grew up in Highlands Ranch, Colo., less than 12 miles from the Summit's temporary home at Centennial Stadium. She played for Real Colorado, a storied youth club (and the rival club of fellow Colorado native Heaps, who played for the Rush). She is developing a football-inspired coffee brand with plans to open a brick and mortar in Denver. And when the Summit drew a record-breaking 63,004 fans to Empower Field at Mile High Stadium for its home opener on March 28, it was Sonis whose intermittent happy tears over the occasion shone through the scoreless draw.
She spoke openly about the weight of her gratitude, the honor of representing the community that gave her everything. "I will never forget walking out of that tunnel today and hearing the crowd screaming for us," she said in March. "I look forward to our wonderful fans supporting us for the rest of the season and, like I said, hopefully bringing the first (NWSL) championship to Denver."
It's one thing to say things like that; veteran players and captains are well trained in spurting quotable lines in media interviews. But Sonis showed up with that energy since the beginning. It's ignited a spark in the new Denver side, steadying them through tougher moments of the season and making it unforgettable. It's more than many NWSL expansion sides, who have been around longer than the Summit, have managed, and serves as a reminder that star signings can look a number different of ways.
What Sonis brings to Denver transcends a captain's armband, and the club is fortunate that she and Heaps enjoy a healthy bond and their leadership styles appear complementary. When the Colorado Gazette initially reported that Sonis would cede the captain's armband to Heaps upon her arrival midseason from France, there were understandable questions about the transition given the strong leadership already displayed not only by Sonis, but NWSL veteran and center back Kaleigh Kurtz . Comparison between the three is reductive, particularly because whatever Heaps brings to the squad simply cannot be held against what Sonis and Kurtz have been present for — among their teammates and fans — from the very start.
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Ideally, Heaps' sporting and leadership presence will continue to bolster the expansion side as they continue their playoff push, but the 32-year-old's role, for now, will be limited to the latter as she deals with swelling around her knee that has ruled her out of Denver's last two matches.
Still, Sonis invoked her teammate's name after her Saturday night heroics: "It's something that I practice every single day, and thinking about Lindsey Heaps because her and I are out there every match day minus-one hitting those free kicks."
The Summit are a point below the playoff line. They would not be the first expansion side to reach the playoffs in their first year if they can manage it this season, but they are among the rare few whose inaugural NWSL campaign has been filled with a satisfying blend of struggle, triumph and high-level entertainment. Sonis embodies that like no other.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic .
Canada, Denver Summit FC, NWSL, Women's Soccer
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