Some of the top women’s players in the world are returning to Maryland for the fourth season of Athletes Unlimited lacrosse with their eyes on continuing to grow the league and the game.

Athletes Unlimited is a women’s sports league that runs throughout the year, featuring basketball, lacrosse, softball and volleyball. Each sport plays with a scoring system that awards points to individual players rather than teams, and whoever has the most points at the end of the season is crowned the champion.

In lacrosse, players earn points for goals, saves, draw controls and other plays. Each player on the winning team earns 45 points, and then players and members of the Unlimited fan club vote for the game MVP, which is worth another 45 points.

Teams are chosen through a weekly draft, with picks made by captains assigned to four teams. An initial draft is scheduled Monday, and the top four returning players from the end of the 2023 season — Taylor Moreno, Sam Apuzzo, Kady Glynn and Abby Bosco — will serve as the first group of team captains.

At the end of the first week, the four top players on the leaderboard will become the team captains for the following week and are in charge of drafting a new team.

Although each team captain is paired with a facilitator on the sidelines during games, athletes have to make their own in-game decisions without a typical head coach.

Games are played over four weeks, all at USA Lacrosse’s headquarters in Sparks.

Lacrosse has been a part of the surge in popularity of women’s sports at the college level with more national broadcasts over the last few years. Athletes Unlimited gives fans a chance to see their favorite players compete after their college careers are over and to root for them individually as they rise up the leaderboard, said Abi Jackson, the league’s director of lacrosse.

“[The athletes] have a fan base not only for their college teams, but they have a fan base just individually for themselves, which really plays well to our format,” she said.

Jackson also noted that the league provides fans with narratives to follow. Old teammates will reunite, former rivalries will be reignited and players who were frequent opponents will now play side by side.

As top players have transitioned from college to the pros, the numbers have followed. Metrics such as ticket sales, social media engagement and viewership doubled from the 2022 season to the 2023 season, Jackson said. Engagement on social media continued to increase even after the 2023 season ended.

This year, the TV coverage will get a huge boost. All AU lacrosse games will be broadcast on ESPN networks or Bally Sports, a new TV partner for the league.

“Being able to be on linear [TV] and being visible to everyone, I think that’s only going to help us,” Apuzzo said.

This season’s 56-player roster features dynamic attackers Izzy Scane and Charlotte North, both two-time winners of the Tewaaraton Award given to the top players in men’s and women’s college lacrosse. And there’s no shortage of experience. Nearly a third of the players won at least one national championship in college.

“I think this is the most loaded roster that this league has ever had or professional women’s lacrosse has ever seen,” North said. “I think at every position there are elite athletes who are the best at what they do, and I think that’s going to make for an exciting couple weeks.”

There’s been renewed interest in lacrosse with the relaunch of the men’s Premier Lacrosse League and the International Olympic Committee’s decision to bring a version of the game known as sixes to the Summer Games in 2028.

The players see the buildup to the sport’s return to the Olympics as another opportunity to grow the sport.

“There’s so much more space, we have to really push and propel the sport in its entirety,” two-time AU champion Moreno said. “That’s going to be crucial to just continuing to push the sport forward and kind of preparing ourselves for that epic moment.”