Previous critical analyses: Athletes Unlimited ; PWLL/UWLX ; MWLL Championship Series
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.
CURRENT STATUS: Last evening in Kansas City, the Maybelline played an all-star game featuring many of the players from the MWLL Championship Series, but also a handful of incoming college players like Rachel Clark of Boston College.
COACHES: It’s notable that the coaches are proven commodities in the women’s game. On one side are the greatest player who ever lived, Jen Adams, as well as her Loyola assistant, Dana Dobbie, who as a pro and an international player was the prototype that eventually led to the likes of Charlotte North. On the other side were Laurie DeLuca and Tracey Sullivan, the winning braintrust for the Boston Guard last winter,
PLAYERS: The two teams, Team Izzy and Team North, include U.S. national team players, numerous players from the MWLL and other pro lacrosse promotions, and, importantly, Tewaaraton winners who really brought the stardust into the contest
Each team was also required to have at least two recent collegians. Given this requirement, it’s fitting that the opening goal of the all-star game was scored by recent Boston College attacker Rachel Clark.
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. As in the men’s game, it is imperative for teams to make a decision as to what to do from the draw.
GAME PLAY: The pace of play, of course, is what you might expect with 52-second clock; you have to pay attention to the contest lest you miss something. The players are good enough to move at warp speed and the passing is on-point. The players improvise without having to wait for a signal from the bench.
STRATEGY: You thought the 60-second clock made your eyes dart from end to end? Take eight seconds from the possession clock and it’s a wild ride of a game. I think coaches in this league are going to have to make their chances in tactics through substitutions rather than calling plays, especially in situations where there is a 32-second clock after a draw or rebound.
I also think the league is going to give pause to players who rely on draw sticks to win draws, because they spend several seconds swapping out the stick after the draw.
OVERALL AESTHETICS: Remember when U.S. Lacrosse published “unified” rules to put men’s and women’s lacrosse on the same-sized pitch? Well, following on from Next Collegiate Lacrosse and its identical rules between men’s and women’s Sixes, the MWLL/PLL is now the closest thing to it. The women play 10-a-side on the identical pitch that the PLL uses.
The draw is taken from the center, but the wing players do not line up on the edge of a 10-yard circle, but they are behind the lines drawn for the wingers on the men’s side. This puts a premium on players who can win the draw to themselves.
There is also no arc or fan in this form of the game. I didn’t see any kind of zone defense or barricading of the goal, which was a major concern of the rulesmakers back in the day. I think a lot of this is because the short possession clock doesn’t allow a defense time to try to organize a zone or low-block.
I also didn’t see midfield fouling that has led to the epidemic of green-card fouls over the last several years; the ride isn’t much of a strategy when the game is played 10-v-10.
OUTLOOK: The final score of this contest, featuring the best in the world, was 24-20, which is 44 goals in 48 minutes.
I wouldn’t expect this in a full-fledged MWLL league match, especially when defenses are given the agency to be able to make fair challenges on the ball. It is difficult enough to make a fair check against a player with great skills as well as the offset stick, but when defenders have to chase attackers racing against a short shot clock, that makes it even more difficult.
Last night’s all-star game was encapsulated in one comparison: “This isn’t an NBA All-Star Game; these players are trying to win.” Fair enough. But this game did resemble some pro all-star contests when the offenses were unleashed: 211 points for the NBA East All-Stars, 17 goals for Team Toews in the NHL All-Star game in 2015, the 62 points for the NFC in the 2012 Pro Bowl.
I think the final product, when we see the Guard, Charging, Charm, Palms, and other teams populate a future league, is going to be somewhat different from what we saw last night.
