Previous critical analyses: Athletes Unlimited ; PWLL/UWLX ; MWLL Championship Series; MWLL All-Star Game
BACKGROUND: The Premier Lacrosse League, owned by Paul Rabil, an 11-year veteran of Major League Lacrosse, held a round-robin Sixes competition for women in February 2025, which has led to a WLL All-Star Game in Kansas City last year, and a second round-robin Sixes competition for women earlier in 2026.
CURRENT STATUS: This year, the Women’s Lacrosse League (note the dropping of Maybelline as title sponsor, though it remains on the sideline advertising). The WLL is taking the same four teams that played in the Sixes leagues, added players through the college draft and through free agency. Last evening in Baltimore, the second of eight regular-season games in the WLL took place. There is a maximum of one WLL game in each of the eight match weekends, while every one of the eight Premier Lacrosse League teams will play on almost every match weekend.
COACHES: Each team has coaching which is experienced somewhere in the lacrosse world. Last evening, the California Palms were led by Maddy Buss, who has led three major lacrosse programs in southern California. The opposing Maryland Charm were led by former East Carolina and North Carolina assistant coach Emily Parros,
PLAYERS: The two teams, the Palms and Charm, had much of the personnel that they had in the Sixes series. They added players through various means, and each team, as it turns out, had more players on their roster than the 18 players that are allowed on gameday, and the number of available players to the four teams appears to outstrip the four current rosters.
Amongst the players who were released in the last week include notable players like Molly Laliberty and Carolina Wakefield. Teams are having to juggle players on several lists, making sure that 18 healthy bodies are available for games.
TIMING: The WLL uses four quarters of 12 minutes each. The shot clock is, like the Premier League, 52 seconds. But off draws and on rebounds, the possession clock is a mere 32 seconds. From the draw, you are seeing teams taking the ball straight to goal with unusual aggressiveness. As in the men’s game, it is imperative for teams to make a decision, and usually, that is just to find the first best shot you can. The Palms’ Marie McCool was particularly effective in scoring directly from the draw, and you had to keep an eye on her.
GAME PLAY: The pace of play is what you might expect with a 52-second possession clock. The warp speed of players like McCool and Ally Kennedy force you to pay attention to the contest instead of discussing with a friend or a lacrosse novice why a certain play is or isn’t working. In terms of strategy, the defenses last evening were single-coverage defenses which do not slough towards the critical scoring area where the fan might be.
In terms of offense, teams were very adept at rhythm passing to a teammate curling from the office to the post; the diagonal was there all day for both sides. The two-point goal never came into play last evening, and will not unless your name is Charlotte North.
STRATEGY: Coaches are finding themselves having to run numerous players through the substitution box like Grand Central Terminal because of the compressed nature of the possession clock. Players were substituting at opposite ends of the box on a continuous basis, like in box lacrosse, looking for that extra five yards to get an advantage into the next offensive or defensive set.
OVERALL AESTHETICS: The women play 10-a-side on the identical pitch that the PLL uses. There is, however, one more person on the field than you might expect. The WLL is, I believe, the first women’s lacrosse league in the world to have four on-field umpires to call the game.
The umpires did not show a card all game; instead, penalties are called by throwing a flag, a throwback to a previous time when yellow flags were dropped for fouls leading to free positions. But without an arc and fan assembly, major fouls in the critical scoring area were instead penalized by sending a player off for a temporary suspension. Almost all of the fouls last evening were the 30-second variety.
One other thing that came into play last night was the thumping music and announcements, which were not only continuous, they were loud. They were loud enough so that cell phones were broadcasting alerts to health apps that the decibel level was high.
Sometime after the half, however, the volume was scaled back, and I do wonder if the coaching staffs of the two teams had an influence on that. By the fourth quarter, fans could hear the chattering of the players as they were calling out the locations of opponents or calling plays. And presumably, the players on the field could hear each other
GAMEPLAY: The game see-sawed throughout regulation until the score was 16-15 in favor of Maryland with time ticking down in the final minute. The Palms’ Emma LoPinto scored with 55 seconds left to tie the game at 16-16, and then Kennedy scored to hoist the Charm to a one-goal lead with 18 seconds to go. California’s McCool would then answer with five seconds to go to tie the score at 17-17. It was a thriller of a final minute, for sure.
During the break leading into extra time, the air was let out of the stadium when the overtime rules were explained. The teams would play a single 12-minute period of golden-goal overtime. If, however, no goals were scored before the clock expires, the game would end in a tie.
“A tie? What is this, Connecticut?” the mood of the crowd suggested.
OUTLOOK: Fortunately, the end of the Palms-Charm contest came only 10 seconds into overtime, as Cassidy Spilis scored just 10 seconds into the extra session.
As we usually expect at the outset of lacrosse seasons, the offenses are ahead of the defenses. The combined scores of the two WLL contests thus far are 64 goals in 96 minutes. But it is hard to blame the goaltenders. Caylee Waters of the Charm (13 saves) and Taylor Moreno of the Palms (15 saves) were both outstanding.
I wonder how this dynamic will play out over the course of the summer.