These Three Tigers Are Working to Elevate Pro Women’s Lacrosse

When Rachael (Becker) DeCecco ’03 graduated from Princeton, having won the Tewaaraton Award as the nation’s top college lacrosse player, there was no path for her to continue playing except by making the U.S. national team.

When Marge Donovan ’22 and McKenzie Blake ’25 graduated two decades later, professional women’s lacrosse was still new enough that they didn’t always know if or when they’d get to play next.

Those three Tigers are now part of the Women’s Lacrosse League (WLL), and they’re trying to help the league grow so future players can have long, stable professional careers.

“It just means a lot to me, representing the Ivy League,” Blake said. “Hopefully younger girls … see that I went to Princeton or Marge went to Princeton [and that] there is a path to go to an Ivy League school, get a great education, but then also still play at the pro level.”

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Rachael (Becker) DeCecco ’03, left, with WLL All-Star Game MVP Marie McCool. 

Courtesy of the WLL

The WLL is the fourth professional women’s lacrosse league in the past decade. The United Women’s Lacrosse League started things off from 2016 to 2018, then the Women’s Professional Lacrosse League (WPLL) replaced it from 2018 to 2019. Athletes Unlimited launched another league in 2021 but indefinitely suspended operations in December 2024. The WLL had been announced in November 2024, but it didn’t play a summer season until this year.

“There was that whole summer [in 2025] where there was no professional lacrosse, which really was tough for a lot of people,” Donovan said.

DeCecco helped build the WPLL from scratch, leaving an established career in healthcare to take a chance on lacrosse. After the league folded, DeCecco joined the men’s Premier Lacrosse League, which later launched the WLL. She’s now the senior vice president of lacrosse for both leagues, and she describes her job as overseeing “anything that hits the field,” from rules to equipment to player health and safety.

“I’m never doing the same things two days in a row, which I love,” she said. “I’m never bored.”

“Rachael is a legend and … an absolute powerhouse of an individual,” Donovan said. “I'd follow Rachael wherever she goes.”

Donovan, a defender, and Blake, an attacker, both play in the WLL, but like many of their teammates, they also have other jobs. Donovan is pursuing her Ph.D. in aerospace engineering at the University of Maryland and tests helicopter blades as a graduate research assistant at the university’s Alfred Gessow Rotorcraft Center. Blake worked in sales and client services for the Philadelphia Eagles for nearly a year and is pivoting to coaching college lacrosse.

The WLL has four teams and began in February 2025 with a weeklong Championship Series in “sixes,” the six-on-six form of lacrosse that will be in the 2028 Olympics. The Championship Series returned in February 2026, and a 10-game summer season began in May using the 10-on-10 international rules. Games take place in different cities each weekend, from traditional lacrosse hotbeds like Baltimore to newer markets like San Diego.

“It’s ultra-competitive, but it’s also really supportive,” Donovan said. “[We’re] all supporting each other and truly wanting what's best for the sport, so that's definitely been my favorite part.”

The pace of growth has been very intentional, DeCecco said. The WLL owns all four teams, so it’s especially cautious about overextending itself financially. But it has a five-year media rights deal with ESPN, which DeCecco said has been huge for increasing exposure. And from a player’s perspective, it feels like there’s more investment in them than in the past.

“The WLL is just doing a great job of pouring all of their resources into us,” Blake said.

The most challenging part of building the league has been competing for attention with everything else fans could be watching, DeCecco said. The most rewarding has been watching how hard the players play — and how the fans react. “There’s real impact here on people’s happiness,” she said. “So that’s everything.”

Over the next five to 10 years, DeCecco hopes to see every metric improve, including adding teams, adding games, and increasing player salaries. From there, the WLL could seize a more prominent, and permanent, role in the U.S. sports landscape, similar to how the WNBA and NWSL have elevated women’s basketball and soccer, respectively.

“I’m super hopeful with the trajectory it’s on, and with all the staff … making an argument for lacrosse to be on the level of a WNBA or NWSL,” Donovan said. “I think it’s definitely going to get there.”