The lacrosse stars of today and tomorrow will descend on Baltimore this weekend.

In addition to serving as the stage for the latest round of regular-season PLL action, Homewood Field on the campus of Johns Hopkins also will play host to the 2024 PLL Junior Championships.

A total of 16 youth squads -- eight U14 and eight U12, each representing a PLL team -- will participate in the select tournament, which culminates in two championship games Sunday on ESPN+.

The players will take the field in official PLL uniforms, among other perks, and will have the opportunity to be coached by current PLL pros.

Three players who coached at last year’s Junior Championships reflected on their experience this week.

Asher Nolting, Boston Cannons: “It’s a super fun event to work. The league and Three Step Sports do a great job putting on the event. It’s really well run -- it’s not like the kids just show up, hang out and get the gear and that’s that. We do a lot of work with them in installing an offense and a defense and implementing as much of our coaching knowledge and expertise onto them. It’s a really cool event."

Troy Reh, Carolina Chaos: "It was a great experience and atmosphere. It was cool to coach kids from all over the country."

Cole Kirst, California Redwoods: “It was an unbelievable experience. I was fortunate enough to coach alongside Mike Marich and Tim Troutner. He and myself just brought the values that Coach Nat [St. Laurent], Coach John Grant Jr., Coach [Chris] Collins gave to me in my rookie season last year, and tried to bestow that to the younger players. And that's the mentality that I tried to bring with our energy, our attitude, our effort and to play Redwoods lacrosse.”

Reh: “It was great to coach and not play. To share some experiences I have with playing on these guys and watch them make unbelievable plays and grow as lacrosse players. That’s one of the best parts about being a coach.”

Kirst: “I was mainly with the offensive midfielders and the attackmen and working on skill development with other pros. Garrett Leadmon, for example, was one that I was running a drill with. He and I were working on on-the-run shooting, getting our hands back, following through, focusing not only on accuracy but also on muscle memory. These were the drills that Garrett and I thought that at a young age, we could have benefited from,  understanding those body mechanics, those fundamentals to allow you to have your arms back to follow through.”

Reh: "The young talent was some of the best I’ve seen. You have kids from all different states come and showcase their individual talent. The chemistry they showed to be successful in a team setting was unbelievable to see as well. These guys practice for an hour together before they get into the round-robin games."

Kirst: “I attended, evaluated and coached in January in Orlando at the first PLL Juniors tryout and the talent was off the charts, the players were scoring behind the back, moving without the ball, and the coolest part was everyone was from a different area. They all bonded and played so hard because they love the game. And that's something that's so cool, it's the passion and the fire in these younger players.”

Nolting: “It’s really, really fun. The kids get to feel like they’re in the PLL.”

Kirst: “Taking pictures with a bunch of those players and just seeing how much passion and fight they had was an opportunity that I'm so grateful for.”

Interviews by Sarah Griffin, Hayden Lewis and Jerome Taylor