After being a key piece to Syracuse’s first Final Four appearance since 2013, Owen Hiltz had a delayed start to his Premier Lacrosse League career. While other players began stuffing the nets and stat sheets on May 30th in Albany, Hiltz debuted with the Carolina Chaos on June 22nd. Entering August, however, fans wouldn’t even recognize the three game absence because of the monster numbers he has tallied to begin his rookie season.
The Chaos came into 2025 power-ranked near the bottom of the PLL. To make matters worse, they were picking last in the draft at the eighth slot. The Chaos were quite simply stuck: Multiple holes to fill on the roster, missing draft picks in both the third and fourth rounds, and trying to quickly improve in an offseason where the rich got richer. Hiltz went at number 8, behind multiple players from the Final Four weekend: Tewaaraton Award (Lacrosse MVP) winner and Cornell attack CJ Kirst, Orange teammate and midfielder Sam English, and Penn State high-flying midfielder Matt Traynor.
Hiltz, since making his debut a month ago, has launched himself into the Rookie of the Year award. He has continued his head-turning streak of recording a point in every contest dating back to the start of his Syracuse career. Perhaps even more impressive, Hiltz is leading the entire PLL in points per game at 4.4. This accounts for about a third of the Chaos’ recent goals, meaning that Hiltz stamps his fingerprints all over the scoreboard and statsheet. Hiltz has begun to catch up to other rookies in the total stat categories; following his performance on Saturday, he has 13 total goals which puts him fourth among all rookies. His nine assists already lead all rookies (And with two more weeks left in the regular season, prepare for this margin to widen). His 22 total points, in three fewer games than the other rookies vying for the award, is third best.
Stats don’t begin to tell Hiltz’s story, though Saturday night’s game-of-the-year worthy overtime win against the Philadelphia Waterdogs could provide context. Hiltz recorded five points, a goal and four assists, in a crucial overtime win. Throughout the game, he generated crucial shot chances that kept the defense having to shade towards the rookie at the critical junctures where the shot clock began to dwindle. He finished with four shots on goal, the third most on the Chaos, and tallied primary assists in three of the four quarters of regulation. However, once the sudden-death overtime started, Hiltz calmly drew a defender and made a crisp cross field pass to teammate Jackson Eicher to give the Chaos their 15th of the game and a win. This win puts the Chaos in prime position to qualify for the playoffs; They stand a game above the Western Conference rival California Redwoods and Utah Archers with two weeks left in regular season play.
Hiltz plays like a seasoned veteran already: He routinely displays the patience to find the open teammate and facilitate the offense rather than trying to work through the elite poles and force a shot. He is representing Syracuse extremely well this summer in the PLL, with more professional Orangemen perhaps on the way with a loaded 2026 lacrosse senior class.
