The Premier Lacrosse League is back in town with its championship final this Sunday afternoon at Subaru Park in Chester.
The PLL’s Philly team, the Waterdogs, didn’t make the postseason this year, but there are still plenty of local players on the teams that made the final — the defending champion Utah Archers and Maryland Whipsnakes. Many still live in the area and will have friends and family filling out the gameday crowd.
“First off, to get to the last game of the season and be one of the last two is always a privilege and it’s really special,” said Archers captain Ryan Ambler, an Abington native. “It’s probably heightened because I grew up a couple miles away from here, so I’ve got a ton of friends and family who are going to be in the area.”
Ambler won’t be alone in having local friends and family in attendance. Matt Moore is from Garnet Valley in Delco, Grant Ament is from Doylestown and Eli Fisher is from Allentown. Mike Sisselberger is from Center Valley, Pa. Head coach Chris Bates was previously in charge at Drexel and Princeton Universities, and now coaches St. Andrew’s School in Middletown, Del. Assistant coach Tony Resch’s full-time job — when he’s not a 10-time professional lacrosse champion coach — is guidance counselor and lacrosse coach at La Salle College High School.
The Whipsnakes come into the game having already done what the Archers are trying to do: win back-to-back titles. The team boasts attackman and Glenside native Matt Rambo, who also played for the Philadelphia Wings box lacrosse team. He knows the support this sports crowd can provide from his time with the Wings — and its ire, too, when he scored an overtime goal against a Philly team.
“Hopefully some of the Philly guys, some of the Waterdogs fans who have watched me with the Wings and supported me through my career will come out,” Rambo said. “It would be great if the whole crowd was Rambo fans, but I doubt that’s what it is … We have to just focus on the field and not really in the stands.”
Ambler said that playing for an opposing team has gotten him a little family grief as well.
“My brother-in-law, who is a staunch Philly sports fan, tried to give me a little bit of smack for it and he quickly got shut down in the family group chat,” Ambler said.
Alongside Rambo are rookies TJ Malone from West Chester, and former St. Joe’s Hawk Levi Anderson. Head coach Jim Stagnitta is a Penn alum.
Every player said they were expecting dozens of friends and family members to be in the stands Sunday.
The season marked an evolution for PLL, formerly a traveling league that instead assigned its teams home cities and instituted east and west divisions, with homecoming weekends during the regular season. The Waterdogs were assigned as Philly’s team and played their homecoming weekend in June at Villanova Stadium.
It wasn’t a great year for the Waterdogs. The team finished last in the overall standings at 2-8 and didn’t make the playoffs. Some solace is that Philly will get the No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 College Draft.
Subaru Park has hosted the season finale three times before in the league’s six-season history. For all the local players and coaches, they’re excited to get the chance to showcase the sport, which returns to the Olympic Games in Los Angeles in 2028, to a next generation.
“To have the young guys and girls around here to see this caliber play and the type of athletes and people that are involved in the league and these two teams is really special and can only help,” Resch said. “Maybe a kid who hasn’t around the sport much will see it and say, ‘Boy, that looks like something I’d like to try.’ ”
Moore found the experience like closing a circle.
“Being in this career where you kind of wondered where this professional league was when you were a kid, and now you’re kind of writing that, it’s definitely cool to see,” Moore said.
The final starts at 3 p.m. and still has tickets available. It will also be live on ABC and ESPN+.
