USF beach volleyball coach resigns after team's inaugural varsity season

South Florida is looking for a beach volleyball head coach less than a month after concluding the team’s inaugural NCAA varsity season.

Pri Piantadosi-Lima resigned her position for “personal reasons,” USF CEO of Athletics Rob Higgins announced Friday.

“We will be moving forward with a national coaching search immediately,” Higgins said in a statement posted on USF’s social media.

Piantadosi-Lima coached the Bulls to a 21-15 record in their first varsity season, which concluded with a 3-1 loss to No. 1 seed Florida Atlantic at the Conference USA Championships in Youngsville, Louisiana.

ALSO READ: Three years in the making, USF's beach volleyball team finally hits the sand

Piantadosi-Lima was hired in 2023 to build the program from scratch. She guided the Bulls through roster development and a practice season in 2024-25 ahead of this spring’s debut.

Higgins wrote on X that “we could not be more excited” for the future of the program, which includes plans to open a lighted, six-court beach volleyball facility on campus this fall.

ALSO READ: The hype for two new USF sports is real

“We are focused on finding the perfect leader to support and grow this special group of amazing student-athletes,” he wrote. “Our next coach will build this program into a national college beach volleyball powerhouse.”

Piantadosi-Lima previously founded and owned Optimum Beach, a beach volleyball training facility in St. Petersburg. A native of Brazil, she played professionally for nearly two decades.

A Tampa Bay area resident for the past 15 years, Piantadosi-Lima helped launch Eckerd College’s beach volleyball program in 2015 as an assistant coach.