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Irish In The PLL: Week One

The 2025 PLL season kicked off this past weekend in Albany, New York, and Notre Dame was well represented with 17 alums across seven teams. The California Redwoods enter the year with the most former players, as six players are on the active roster. The Redwoods won their opening weekend matchup against the Denver Outlaws by a score of 15-12.

Notre Dame had two players make their professional debuts in Chris Kavanagh and Ben Ramsey. Other notable Irish storylines were Jack Kielty’s return after missing the entire 2024 campaign due to an injury and Pat Kavanagh’s first game with the Denver Outlaws. The Irish had a number of standout performers over Friday and Saturday to open the 2025 campaign, with a few highlighted below.

CHRIS KAVANAGH
The rookie made an instant impact in the first professional game of his career, scoring a game-high four goals and adding an assist to lead the Redwoods’ offense. The four goals marked the most scored by a rookie in a PLL debut in league history. Chris Kavanagh was named the PLL Player of the Week following his impressive game. 

BRYAN COSTABILE
The sharp-shooting midfielder scored four goals and added an assist over his first two games of the season to get off to a strong start in his sixth year in the league. Costabile paced the Atlas attack with a three-goal hat trick in the season-opening win over the Charlotte Chaos.

LIAM ENTENMANN
The second-year shot stopper had a ridiculous performance in the season-opening win over the Chaos, allowing just eight goals while making 16 saves, a number of which were of the highlight variety.

BEN RAMSEY
The rookie picked up right where he left off from his final season in South Bend, recording three caused turnovers, three ground balls and an assist. Ramsey became one of only five rookies to cause three turnovers and record three ground balls in a single game.

GARRETT EPPLE
The veteran defenseman had a strong start to the 2025 season, causing two turnovers and recording three ground balls. Epple was part of a defense that managed to hold the Atlas high-scoring attack to just 12 goals en route to a 16-12 season-opening win.

PAT KAVANAGH
Friday night’s opener marked Pat Kavanagh’s debut with the Denver Outlaws, a team that his older brother Matt won MLL titles with in 2016 and 2018. In his first game with his new squad, Kavanagh scored two goals and added an assist for Denver, despite the loss.

IRISH IN THE NEWS
Feature on Chris Kavanagh and Ryder Garnsey becoming teammates.

Next Up
Denver Outlaws (P. Kavanagh) vs Carolina Chaos (Dobson, Perkovic)
Friday, June 6 @ 6pm on ESPN+

Philadelphia Waterdogs (Jake Taylor) vs Maryland Whipsnakes
Friday, June 6 @ 8:30pm on ESPN+

Boston Cannons (Kielty, Ramsey, Epple) vs. Archers (McLane, Lynch)
Saturday, June 7 @ 1 pm on ABC/ESPN+

California Redwoods (Garnsey, C. Kavanagh, Tevlin, Cohen, Conlin, Fake) vs Carolina Chaos (Dobson, Perkovic)
Saturday, June 7 @ 7pm on ESPN+