One weekend this month, Centreville Bank Stadium in Rhode Island took center stage to make history with the Women’s Lacrosse League kicking off its first season of full-field play.

A week later, the soccer stadium on the banks of the Seekonk River welcomed Boston Legacy FC for the first in a seven-game stint in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.

The back-to-back women’s sports weekends represent an intentional strategy for the year-old venue, one that is creating space for women’s games and events while serving as home to the USL’s Rhode Island FC. Stadium management built it that way from the start, welcoming Women’s Elite Rugby in last May the day after the stadium opened.

“We’ve established ourselves as the place to be,” Paul Byrne, general manager of Centreville Bank Stadium, told me. “We still have some work to do, but we also established ourselves as a stadium that can host really big events.”

The venue’s early run offers a lesson to the market — those big events are women’s sports events.

Boston Legacy FC kicked off its run of games in front of 9,141 fans Saturday.

“One of the things that fans love about football soccer is the intimacy and the intensity of the experience, and you can get that at Centerville Bank Stadium,” Legacy CRO Amina Bulman told me last week.

Paul Rabil, co-founder and president of the WLL and Premier Lacrosse League, said they drew about 7,000 in attendance for five total games (four men’s and one women’s) there earlier this month, with the bulk of that during the women’s game May 16.

It served as a launch point of sorts for the league, which began play with a championship series last year in the sixes format that will be included in LA28. The WLL’s kickoff at Centreville Bank Stadium serves as the first in a 10-city tour this season.

“Rhode Island’s new venue ownership group was very cooperative and very excited about the future of the PLL and the WLL,” Rabil told me.

New England teamwork

While the nation’s smallest state doesn’t have a pro women’s sports team, Rabil said youth clubs in Massachusetts pushed for Rhode Island’s inclusion as a tour stop.

“This was a great opportunity for us to learn about the other side of New England,” he said.

That regional appeal certainly helped Legacy FC, which will play at Centreville Bank Stadium while the FIFA Men’s World Cup takes over its temporary home in Gillette Stadium.

Bulman said having a purpose-built soccer stadium that’s accessible via public transit in Boston made it an obvious fit for the club.

“In many ways, Centerville Bank Stadium is a much closer model for White Stadium, which will be our forever home,” she said.

Gillette Stadium has filled in as the team works with the city on Boston’s White Stadium, which is being renovated as part of a public-private partnership. While the NWSL expansion team set a then-record for an inaugural home opener with 30,207 at Gillette (one that would be quickly surpassed by the Denver Summit’s record 63,004 crowd), Centreville Bank Stadium is a better fit than a cavernous football venue.

Capable of holding 10,500 fans, Centreville Bank is close to what the Legacy will have with White Stadium’s planned 11,000 capacity.

Bulman said stadium leadership has been flexible to accommodate fan and sponsor activations and are working with the Legacy to work on joint social promotion and ticket packages with Rhode Island FC.

“Seeing us be back-to-back right after the WLL, it is very cool to me that they are extending that to women’s teams in particular,” she said. “You notice that as a tenant when a partner wants to go above and beyond, and it creates a good experience for you and your fans.”

That experience is one Byrne and the stadium leadership would love to see include a women’s pro team, and they’d like to work with an investor to bring in one from the Gainbridge Super League.

Until that happens, they’re very happy to continue their strategy of courting women’s sports teams.

“We’ve really hit a niche sweet spot for up-and-coming leagues,” Byrne said. “It is a unique subset that I do feel we’re a template now for future building throughout the country.”

The playoffs are here, which means it’s time to try and figure out who is going to win titles.

While there can only be one state champion, three other teams will leave Brown University with division championship trophies. In most years, there’s plenty of drama throughout the postseason, but this year’s brackets seem fairly routine.

Here’s a quick look at who we’re taking to win each game this postseason.

RIIL Boys Lacrosse Playoff Picks

🥍State Championship Predictions

Expect chalk to rule. No. 4 Hendricken has played terrific of late and while No. 5 North Kingstown is talented, let’s push the Hawks into the semifinals. No. 6 Pilgrim plays with an edge and is the most fun team in the state, but No. 3 Barrington is too disciplined to lose this game.

We know how the semifinals are going to go – and we know how the championship game will end.

STATE CHAMPION PREDICTION: La Salle over Moses Brown.

🥍Division II Predictions

The D-II playoffs will only be moderately more dramatic than D-I just because of the semifinal and championship matchup. No. 4 Smithfield is hot coming into the playoffs, with wins in five of its final six games – including a victory over No. 5 Prout. With this game being at home, we’ll give the Sentinels the nod. In the other quarterfinal, it’s No. 3 Portsmouth over No. 6 Middletown.

Top-seeded Westerly should handle business against Smithfield, but the other semifinal might end up being the best game of the playoffs. Portsmouth is a tougher, more physical team than the Avengers and if Jack Colna has a day, the Patriots will be in business. No. 2 East Greenwich has a pretty good goalie of its own in Brendan Darcey and is the most skilled team in D-II. While a Westerly-Portsmouth final would be fun to watch, EG is the pick.

The Bulldogs beat the Avengers in EG. The Avengers beat the Bulldogs in Westerly. What happens at Brown? East Greenwich should win this game, especially after what happened last year. Westerly is the underdog, regardless of seeds, but the Avengers get their win and then get to spend the next four years in D-I.

D-II CHAMPIONSHIP PREDICTION: East Greenwich over Westerly

🥍Division III Predictions

No. 5 North Smithfield travels to play No. 4 Providence Country Day – which also has St. Raphael and East Providence in a co-op that needs a name – in a fun matchup only because the teams didn’t meet in the regular season. The Northmen struggled late, so we’ll give the edge to the Knights in this one. The other quarterfinal sees No. 3 Lincoln hosting No. 6 Burrillville and while the Lions will win, this game is screaming for an upset with how the Broncos finished the season. If Lincoln is too focused on revenge in the semifinals, it might not get there.

Mt. Hope has been the best team in the division and won’t slip up in the semifinals. No. 2 Narragansett knows Lincoln is gunning for it, but the Mariners defense has been too good to not earn a return trip to Brown.

Will the Huskies go back-to-back? Or can Narragansett perform another championship game upset? Either way, this will be the best boys championship game of the weekend.