Former Stanford College standout Jasmine Aikey is setting her targets as excessive because the Rocky Mountains as an inaugural member of the NWSL’s enlargement Denver Summit.
The versatile 20-year-old ahead spoke one-on-one with Athlon Sports activities forward of her debut season with the Summit, which can play its first league match away to Bay FC on March 14.
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Aikey selected to signal with the Summit largely as a result of membership pushing for prime requirements regardless of being a newly-welcomed NWSL franchise. The Summit is led by a pair of serial winners basically supervisor Curt Johnson and head coach Nick Cushing.
Upon listening to of the Summit’s formidable long-term undertaking, Aikey put pen to paper on a two-year take care of a mutual possibility for a third-year extension. Based on Aikey, Johnson and Cushing mapped out a plan for Denver to be aggressive immediately.
“Having an skilled coach and GM was clearly an enormous draw,” Aikey advised Athlon Sports activities. “I’m actually excited in regards to the undertaking and the concepts that they’ve for the Summit. As soon as they outlined the undertaking for me, it grew to become very clear that I needed to return right here.”
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Johnson’s impression as basic supervisor of the Kansas Metropolis Wizards (now referred to as Sporting Kansas Metropolis) helped the MLS facet full a Supporters’ Defend and MLS Cup double in 2000. Kansas Metropolis additionally lifted the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup in 2004. He would later style success as a two-time NWSL champion as president and basic supervisor of the North Carolina Braveness.
Cushing guided Manchester Metropolis to the Ladies’s Tremendous League title in 2016, victory within the 2017 Ladies’s FA Cup last and a trio of Ladies’s League Cup victories.
“We’re not simply coming in right here to a really aggressive league simply to be within the center,” Aikey mentioned. “We wish to win instantly. I believe we’re setting ourselves up for our greatest likelihood to have a profitable first yr. Prime to backside, everyone seems to be focussing on the identical web page, and I believe that’s been actually useful as we’ve received began.”
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Aikey has seen firsthand the standard of the squad that’s being put collectively in Denver. The Summit introduced in a number of skilled abilities, together with previous NWSL champions Kaleigh Kurtz, Ally Brazier, Carson Pickett, Abby Smith, Janine Sonis and Camryn Biegalski.
“They’re being actually sensible about who they recruit,” she mentioned. “The vets are tremendous useful. Clearly, they don’t must child us, however they exit of their option to be sure that us youthful gamers are feeling concerned they usually’re holding a excessive customary for the group. It’s been actually nice to study from them. Even in simply these previous three weeks, I’ve felt like I’ve grown a lot by making an attempt to succeed in their stage. It’s been actually thrilling.
Aikey Thrilled by Summit’s Seize of USWNT Captain Heaps
Lindsey Heaps of the US with the ball through the second half of a Ladies’s Worldwide Pleasant between the US and Jamaica at Energizer Park on June 3, 2025, in St. Louis, Missouri. (Picture by Invoice Barrett/ISI Images/USSF/Getty Photographs)
Essentially the most thrilling seize will arrive in the summertime within the type of United States ladies’s nationwide workforce captain Lindsey Heaps, who can be becoming a member of the Summit after her contract with Première Ligue membership Lyon expires in June.
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“It’s actually somewhat bit surreal,” Aikey mentioned of Heaps. “You consider it, and oh, Lindsey Heaps – superb participant, she’s going to be my teammate. I believe that’s actually a type of I’ve made it moments. It’s actually thrilling for town for her to make her return again to Denver.”
Aikey Wishes to Emulate Fellow Stanford Scoring Ace Turned USWNT Star Macario
Stanford ahead Jasmine Aikey with the ball as BYU midfielder Jamie Shepherd defends within the first half at WakeMed Soccer Park. Bob Donnan-USA TODAY SportsBob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports activities
(Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports activities)
One star whom Aikey appears to for inspiration is ahead Catarina Macario, who completed 2025 with eight targets in 10 nationwide workforce appearances.
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“I used to be there to witness a variety of her video games in her superb junior season,” Aikey mentioned when she recalled watching Macario from the stands at Stanford’s Maloney Discipline at Laird Q. Cagan Stadium. “She’s simply an incredible participant. Gamers that I’ve performed with like Kennedy Wesley, she has such a powerful mentality and is such a tough employee. I believe getting to look at and see these gamers, then see their nationwide workforce success, is absolutely superb.”
She adopted within the footsteps of Macario by scoring bundles of targets for the Cardinal. Aikey capped a first-team All-American season at Stanford by capturing the celebrated Hermann Trophy as the highest ladies’s school soccer participant and the TopDrawerSoccer Ladies’s Nationwide Participant of the 12 months Award.
Macario, who now represents Ladies’s Tremendous League Chelsea, twice scooped the TopDrawerSoccer Ladies’s Nationwide Participant of the 12 months Award and twice obtained the Hermann Trophy earlier than forgoing her senior season at Stanford to start her skilled profession at Lyon.
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Wesley has gone on to make three USWNT appearances whereas establishing herself as a dependable backline presence for the San Diego Wave.
With the NWSL season weeks away, Aikey will quickly have the prospect to write down her personal story with the Summit.
“It additionally helped that I beloved Denver and I’ve lived right here earlier than,” she mentioned. “I like the world. It’s a possibility to stay in an incredible metropolis, and play in a sports activities metropolis and play for a corporation that actually desires to do issues the correct means.
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“Proper now, I’m focussing on adjusting and serving to Denver in any means that I can.”
Summit’s Empower Discipline Residence Opener Prone to Break NWSL Attendance File
An exterior view of Empower Discipline at Mile Excessive on September 15, 2019, in Denver, Colorado. (Picture by Timothy Nwachukwu/Getty Photographs)Picture by Timothy Nwachukwu/Getty Photographs
(Picture by Timothy Nwachukwu/Getty Photographs)
Pleasure is peaking for the Summit, who’ve already surpassed 40,000 tickets offered for his or her inaugural residence sport at Empower Discipline at Mile Excessive towards the Washington Spirit on March 28. Denver is poised to interrupt the NWSL’s all-time single-match attendance document of 40,061, set final season when Bay FC hosted Washington at San Francisco’s Oracle Park.
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“I’ve family and friends buddies right here and there texting me that we’ve received our tickets and we’re going to video games,” Aikey mentioned. “For me, will probably be such an honor to hopefully be capable to play in entrance of all these folks, and so many individuals would wish to help us. The group is so excited, and I’m so excited to hopefully deliver one other championship again to Denver.”
As an NWSL rookie, Aikey and the enlargement Summit are about to embark on a particular journey in hoping to construct a basis for achievement for girls’s soccer in “The Mile Excessive Metropolis.”
Summit followers are eagerly awaiting Denver’s flip to make memorable moments on the pitch.
This story was initially revealed by on Feb 6, 2026, the place it first appeared within the part. Add Athlon Sports activities as a