The Maryland Whipsnakes’ annual Homecoming Weekend will take place at Loyola’s Ridley Athletic Complex on May 29-30, while the Premier Lacrosse League’s All-Star Game will take place at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis on July 5.
The 2026 PLL season began with a trip to Salt Lake City on May 8-9, a few weeks earlier than the league has typically started since the inaugural 2019 season (not including the COVID-impacted 2020 season).
The 2026 season began after PLL co-founder and former Johns Hopkins star Paul Rabil made it clear that changes are eventually coming to the league. Rabil recently shared plans to sell each of the PLL’s eight teams to individual owners, with the PLL moving away from a barnstorming model to traditional game day facilities for each team in every market.
It’s unclear what that will mean for the Maryland Whipsnakes, who currently host one weekend per season, but Whipsnakes head coach Jim Stagnitta knows his job first and foremost is to put a good product on the field regardless of the direction of the league.
“My job is to coach my team and win games,” Stagnitta said on Glenn Clark Radio May 7. “If anyone has a plan and has executed a plan, certainly Paul and Mike [Rabil] have. I think the league has continued to evolve. Obviously, ultimately individual ownership is where they aspire to get to sooner than later. You want to invest in something that’s going to put bodies in the seats and is going to eventually give you a return.”
Stagnitta has been the head coach of the Whipsnakes since the inception of the league, compiling a 40-26 regular-season record and winning PLL championships in 2019 and 2020. The coach is proud of the Whipsnakes’ ability to compete in the PLL on a consistent basis without needing to stack No. 1 or No. 2 overall draft picks in consecutive years to rebuild.
Stagnitta understands how thin the margin for error is in pro lacrosse but always wants to field a quality product when the fans in Maryland come out to see his team play, whether that happens to be at Homewood Field or Ridley Athletic Complex.
“If we can continue to evolve, it’s easier to learn and build when you’re successful,” Stagnitta said. “When you look at it, at the end of the day, successful in our league is a matter of one or two goals. I feel like the last couple of years in Baltimore we’ve been unfortunate. The weather has been ungodly hot there [with] storms. I think that’s had an impact on the crowd.”
Even though the Whipsnakes don’t play a traditional home schedule in Maryland, they do have quite a few players with local connections on the roster. There are nine former Terps: Jake Bernhardt, Matthew Dunn, Colin Heacock, Jack McDonald, Tim Mueller, Brian Phipps, Matt Rambo and Ajax Zappitello. There are also players from Johns Hopkins (Garrett Degnon) and Loyola (Adam Poitras and Payton Rezanka).
The recognizable names and local connections give local lacrosse fans a chance to identify with the Whipsnakes.
“We have a lot of guys from the area now. I think that’s important,” Stagnitta said. “I think that helps [to have] guys that young kids are familiar with. I think there’s a lot that’s positive about this, but our goal right now … is to continue to build a team that you look at it and it has value going forward and what you’re investing in is on that upward trend.”
For more from Stagnitta, listen to the full interview here:
Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Premier Lacrosse League