‘We need him to be aggressive’: Why Aidan Carroll’s dodging presence is crucial for Whipsnakes

Everyone associated with Georgetown’s lacrosse program during Aidan Carroll‘s graduate season knew pretty much every offensive set was designed for him. And they didn’t have a problem with it. Carroll was coming off a breakout 60-point season and was considered one of the premier players in the country.

Yet, early that year, Carroll had a request for the Hoyas’ offensive coordinator, John Hogan: “Do you think we can install some of these for Fulton Bayman, as well?”

Puzzled but impressed by Carroll’s inquiry, Hogan simply told his attackman to keep up his performances and they’d talk later.

“Rarely are you going to have your team’s best player, who everything’s set up for, who everyone on our team wants it to be set up for, come over and ask to share the wealth,” Hogan said.

The moment proved Carroll’s unselfish nature, though he’s at his best when he’s taking over games. He had a knack for doing that at Georgetown, and it’s continued with the Whipsnakes, with Carroll recording a team-high 46 goals over the past two seasons. However, with a limited number of dynamic dodgers on Maryland’s roster, there’s extra pressure on Carroll to deliver. With his size and speed, along with precision shooting on the run, Carroll can often create something out of nothing.

It’s why Whips head coach Jim Stagnitta challenged his star man after a June 27 loss to the Denver Outlaws. Carroll had just seven points in the previous four games and two goals in his last two outings.

“It’s not what we need to do, it’s what he needs to do,” Stagnitta said frankly. “We put the ball in his stick a lot, we gave him space, we gave him the opportunities to do it. He’s got to execute it better, and today he didn’t.”

Since then, Carroll’s had at least four points in three of the Whips’ last five games and nine over their last two. His recent success has coincided with a slight change in his pregame routine. Rather than meditating — which Carroll did throughout college — he turned to reading.

Books have made Carroll less anxious on gamedays, along with staying off social media. He reads anything, from Sir Roger Bannister’s memoir “The Four-Minute Mile,” about how Bannister became the first person ever to run a mile under that time. Carroll also read “The Wager,” a tale of survival after an 18th-century British warship was wrecked.

“Anytime you pick up a book or you’re meditating, all that sort of stuff, you just have to stay concentrated on one thing for a little while,” Carroll said. “And whether you’re on your computer doing work or on social media, you don’t always have to do that. So forcing yourself to do that for a long period of time is helpful.”

HOW DID HE DO THAT???🤯

Aidan Carroll sneaks this one in while on his back😳 pic.twitter.com/JwZgb7aw8D

— Maryland Whipsnakes (@PLLWhipsnakes) August 1, 2026

HOW DID HE DO THAT???🤯

Aidan Carroll sneaks this one in while on his back😳 pic.twitter.com/JwZgb7aw8D

— Maryland Whipsnakes (@PLLWhipsnakes) August 1, 2026

Reading has also helped with Carroll’s concentration throughout games, which he admitted needed to improve. Although the Whipsnakes’ losses to Denver and Boston in back-to-back weeks can be boiled down to a lack of focus, Carroll will be crucial to how the Whipsnakes can change their fortunes ahead of the playoffs.

Since challenging Carroll, Stagnitta’s been satisfied with the midfielder’s performances. Stagnitta knows it’s not Carroll’s personality to take over games, but they “need him to do what the top guys in the league do.”

At points, Carroll has shown he can be a one-man wrecking crew. In the 2025 Big East Championship, he exploded for eight goals against Villanova, then followed it up with six more in an upset over Duke in the first round of the NCAA tournament. However, his final collegiate game, an 8-6 loss to Maryland, is still ingrained in his head.

“I wasn’t the player that I should have been, and it was because I wasn’t as assertive as I should be,” Carroll said of his three-point performance. “In the PLL, especially this season, I’ve been a little bit better at it, but I’m still working on it.”

Carroll’s rise to stardom seemed unlikely. Georgetown head coach Kevin Warne only discovered him when he saw Carroll pull off an impressive split dodge while walking to another field during a recruiting event at UMass.

Once Carroll was with the Hoyas, he struggled with injuries in his first two years, but during his time on the scout team, he held his own against Will Bowen, the 2022 Schmeisser Award winner. Carroll was a second-line midfielder as a junior, recording 14 points, before Warne and Hogan decided to bump him up to attack.

Hogan always saw Carroll working on the fundamentals before and after practice. The offensive coordinator watched Carroll do a wide range of shooting drills and ask Hogan about his technique. He’d break everything down into parts, inquiring about each step, including his hand and foot placement, along with his follow-through.

“If you had to write a book and a plan on how to be a good player, you’d follow what Aidan Carroll did,” Warne said.

After Carroll refined his shooting technique enough, he started asking about his approach as a dodger. He and Hogan talked about the angles Carroll should take, whether it’d be down the alley or in the middle of the field. He even watched film on his now-teammate TJ Malone — whom Hogan coached at Penn State — to refine his moves around the crease.

“He started to really focus on a little bit more variety in his moves, but keeping it simple,” Hogan said. “He started to continue to progress on those things, and then going into his fifth year for us, he just took it to a whole other level in terms of his deception.”

Eventually, Carroll realized the fewer moves in his arsenal, the better. As a former basketball player, he was enamored with Kobe Bryant’s proficiency at the elbow, where he leaned on one or two moves to be dominant.

Carroll’s speed dodges became his forte, while his quick change of direction made him a threat on rollbacks when the defense overcommitted. Warne was always impressed by Carroll’s ability to play through contact and not get knocked off his path when releasing shots.

“His relentlessness stands out,” Warne said. “He’s kind of like a boxer. You might get a couple shots in early on, and then he just keeps coming and coming and coming, and kind of wears you down.”

It still took some time for Carroll to find comfort in being a go-to option for the Hoyas. During a preseason scrimmage versus Virginia, Carroll had the ball on the end line toward the end of the shot clock and immediately passed it off. In the ensuing film session, Hogan singled out Carroll, telling him that they needed him to take advantage of those opportunities.

“It’s almost like you’re thinking of yourself first because you don’t want to appear selfish, so you’re taking a back seat,” Carroll said. “But being unselfish is doing what the team needs, so I think that’s kind of how I’ve flipped the mindset a little bit.”

Eventually the results started to show. Carroll had 60 points as Georgetown’s first option in 2024. Once he was awarded a fifth year of eligibility, the pressure on him to deliver only increased. That included having to dodge on “essentially 85-90%” of Georgetown’s possessions, according to Warne.

Carroll wound up tallying at least three points in 14 out of Georgetown’s 17 games, with Hogan saying the back half of the season was as impressive a stretch as he’s seen from anyone.

That success carried over to the PLL, where he was a finalist for Rookie of the Year. Carroll’s second season has been a little uneven, as highlighted by Stagnitta’s early-season comments, but Carroll still leads all PLL midfielders in goals (25).

With the Whipsnakes’ struggles in late-game scenarios over the past two weeks, they’re still working out who needs to have the ball in crucial moments. With Carroll’s track record, he might solve their problems.

“He’s our best dodger,” Stagnitta said. “I don’t care if he initiates on every single play because he makes things happen. He draws the defense [and] poles struggle to cover him. So we need him to be aggressive all the time.”