CJ Kirst is not just outpacing previous MVP winners, he's outpacing the best seasons in PLL and MLL history. Through four games, we're on history watch.
- Dan Arestia
- 10 hours ago
- 6 min read
Philadelphia Waterdogs attackman CJ Kirst has emerged as a clear front runner for PLL MVP. He’s scoring at a ridiculous pace. He has 20 goals, evenly split 10 apiece assisted and unassisted. He’s averaging 5.5 points per game, he has rocketed up the league leaderboards in scoring categories and has the Waterdogs at third overall in the standings, trailing only due to score differential. What makes all this more impressive is that Kirst was late arriving to the PLL season. Because he was busy winning an NLL title with the Toronto Rock, Kirst has only played four games this summer, and missed the Waterdogs first two contests. The team is 3-1 since he joined them, and they've won three straight. Even spotting the rest of the league a couple games headstart, Kirst has caught, and passed, just about all of his peers this year as he sits at third in the league in points.Â
At this point, it’s almost unfair to compare Kirst to the rest of this year’s players. It’s time to start comparing him to prior great PLL seasons. I went back to look at the seasons for each player to win the Attackman of the Year award in the PLL since 2019 when the league launched. I decided against MVP, since there were years that an attackman didn’t win it, and any year an attackman did win it they also won their positional award. Safe to say if Kirst wins AOTY this year, it would take a second half miracle from someone for him to not also win MVP.Â
Because Kirst is only four games in, I decided to compare him to the first four games from each prior award winner in their winning season. That’s Connor Shellenberger in 2025, Jeff Teat in 2024, Marcus Holman in 2023, Lyle Thompson in 2022, Grant Ament in 2021, and Matt Rambo in 2019. Because of the format and just outlier nature of 2020’s COVID bubble season, I omitted that because it felt too much like apples and oranges. No offense Zed Williams, that bubble season was outstanding, but it’s not fair to compare it to a typical PLL summer.Â
When you start stacking Kirst up against the other award winners through their first four games, it becomes clear he isn’t just a front runner for the awards this year. It’s a season that, should his pace continue, will be one for the history books even with two missed games.Â
SCORING
Despite what your youth lacrosse coach might have told you about the team that wins ground balls, or works hardest, or just wants it more winning lacrosse games, the team that actually wins is the team that puts the ball in the goal the most. And CJ Kirst puts the ball in the goal a ton. In fact, he’s doing it at a rate that isn’t just blowing previous award winners out of the water, it’s the best rate the pro outdoor game game has ever seen. The next best to CJ this year is Mark Millon who scored 4.4 goals per game in the 2003 season. In those early MLL days, quarters were 15 minutes as opposed to the PLL's 12 minutes, meaning more time for more goals. Not only that, but in 2003 the MLL still had a rule that teams could only have three long sticks on the field at a time, severely hindering defenses in an effort to increase scoring as much as possible. The rule differences only make Kirst’s scoring tear this year more incredible. He is shooting more, and scoring more, than any previous AOTY award winner. Here’s how it stacks up against previous AOTY winners, along with his shot pace. A reminder these stats are through the first four games for each player in their respective season.
Goals:
CJ Kirst - 20 (5 per game)
2023 Holman and 2022 Lyle - 14 (3.5 per game)
2024 Teat - 12 (3 per game)
2019 Rambo and 2025 Shellenberger - 7 (1.75 per game)
2021 Ament - 5 (1.25 per game)
Shots:
CJ Kirst - 8.8 per game
2023 Holman - 8.25 per game
2024 Teat - 8 per game
2022 Lyle and 2019 Rambo - 6.25 per game
2021 Ament - 5 per game
2025 Shellenberger - 4 per game
PASSING
Assist kings find their way to end of season hardware too, but not quite with the frequency of top goal scorers. This is the only thing you can point to and say Kirst just isn’t doing enough of it. But that needs context too. His teammate, Michael Sowers, currently leads the league in assists, and the Philly offense has plenty of feed first options. Kirst’s skill set is best used when he is the guy getting fed, not doing the feeding. If his assist total were to suddenly outweigh his goal total, that would likely be a sign that something was going wrong, not right. That said, even this number could be higher. Kirst has two assists, but he has 16 assist opportunities, meaning just 12.5% of his feeds are getting converted. Top assist leaders in the PLL see their opportunities converted about twice as often. Again, stats are for the first four games of each player’s season.
Assists:
2024 Teat - 18 (4.5 per game)
2021 Ament - 13 (3.25 per game)
2019 Rambo - 10 (2.5 per game)
2025 Shellenberger - 8 (2 per game)
2022 Lyle - 6 (1.5 per game)
CJ Kirst - 2 (0.5 per game)
THE OTHER STUFF
The stuff that your youth lacrosse coach told you actually won games. Ground balls, avoiding turnovers, the things that all contribute to extra possession for your team, and more opportunities to score more goals than your opponent. Kirst is often lauded for his ability to impact that game in ways outside of scoring, and he is also on or ahead of the pace for previous AOTY winners. He narrowly trails Holman in the ground ball per game stat, but he has a game with more ground balls (5) than Holman had in any single game in his 2023 campaign (4 was Holman’s game high). Just cracking the two ground ball per game mark is an impressive feat. Last year, just five attackmen in the league were at two GBs per game or better.
In terms of turnovers, Kirst is a fraction behind Shellenberger’s MVP season a year ago. But he is sub 1.5, and no other winners have ever been sub 2.0. Last year, Shellenberger won the MVP finishing the season with 1.5 turnovers per game, Kirst is ahead of that now. If you break it out down to turnovers committed per touch, the margin between Kirst, Shellenberger, and the others becomes even more pronounced. Unfortunately the data for touches starts in 2022, so there’s no data for Ament or Rambo. However, Kirst is committing a turnover on just 3.6% of his touches. In Shellenberger’s MVP season, the Atlas star was at 3.2%. Teat, Holman, and Lyle were all more than double that after four games.
Ground balls per game:
2023 Holman - 2.5
CJ Kirst - 2.3
2025 Shellenberger and 2021 Ament - 2
2024 Teat - 1.75
2019 Rambo - 1
2022 Lyle - 0.75
Turnovers per game
2025 Shellenberger - 1.25
CJ Kirst - 1.3
2021 Ament - 2
2022 Lyle - 2.25
2023 Holman and 2019 Rambo - 2.75
2024 Teat - 3.25
EFFICIENCY
It’s not always just getting the ball a ton, it’s what you do with it once you have it. How many touches are you getting per game, and what do you do with those touches to impact the outcome. It’s no surprise that prior winners of major awards all have very high rates of touches per game. Hard to stand out without the ball. That said, because Kirst scores at such a high rate but doesn’t necessarily feed a ton - he has two assists on 16 opportunities, compare that to teammate Sowers with 14 helpers on 41 opportunities - he touches the ball a bit less than prior winners. The Waterdogs spread it around. However the rate at which his touches become points is only a fraction of a percent off Teat’s ridiculous 2024 campaign. That tells you just how historically great this year’s campaign is looking.
Touches (Stat not kept for 2021 and 2019, so no data for Ament and Rambo)
2024 Teat - 47.75 per game
2023 Holman - 39.75 per game
2025 Shellenberger - 39.25 per game
CJ Kirst - 35.8 per game
2022 Lyle - 27.25 per game
Points per touch per game rate (Same as above, no touches data so excludes Ament and Rambo).Â
2022 Lyle - 16.5%
2024 Teat - 15.7%
CJ Kirst - 15.4%
2023 Holman - 11.3%
2025 Shellenberger - 9.5%