Head Coach Pri Piantadosi-Lima announces the Bulls first ever Exhibition Schedule
TAMPA, Sept. 30, 2024 – The University of South Florida Bulls Beach Volleyball program and head coach Pri Piantadosi-Lima have announced the inaugural fall exhibition schedule featuring four stops.
First, the Bulls will debut in the AVCA Beach Pairs Qualifier (East) October 12-13 in Cartersville, Georgia. The Bulls will face NCAA Ranked competitors in this Atlanta Bid Tournament including Georgia State, and Stetson University.
The following weekend, the Bulls play in Manhattan Beach, Calif. October 18-20 for the AVCA Beach Pairs Qualifier (West). The Bulls will face NCAA Ranked competitors in this Manhattan Beach Bid Tournament including the University of Southern California, the University of Washington, Stanford, LMU, Cal Berkley, and UCLA.
The Bulls then return to Tampa, Fla. for the first-ever Bulls Beach Bash October 26-27. This competition will feature the likes of tough opponents such as Tampa University, FIU, and FGCU.
Lastly, Nov. 2-3, the Bulls head to Tavares, Fla. to finish AVCA Beach Pairs Qualifying play. No teams have been released yet for this event.
In each of these AVCA Qualifier meets, the Bulls will have two pairs in the bid division, vying for a chance to qualify for the AVCA Collegiate BVB Pairs National Championships. While three other pairs will be competing in the open division against other schools.
Similar to the NCAA, but just a different governing body, the AVCA allows another stage for college beach volleyball athletes to compete against the sport’s best of the best at the collegiate level. Even though the Bulls are a club team at the moment, as they prepare to join NCAA competition for the 2026 Spring season, they’re eligible to compete for AVCA Championships.
Bulls graduate transfer Audrey Gauthier has made it to the AVCA Pairs National Championship before in Fall 2022 as a member of Stetson University and will be looking to earn a bid to return.
About USF Athletics
USF Athletics currently sponsors 19 varsity men’s and women’s teams that compete in 11 different sports, 18 at the NCAA Division I level in the American Athletic Conference, which will expand to 21 teams with the recently announced additions of women’s lacrosse (2024-25) and women’s beach volleyball. The Bulls’ athletic program began in 1965 and is in its 57th season in 2022-23. Nearly 450 student-athletes train and compete in the athletic district located on the east end of the campus in Tampa, Fla. The Bulls have claimed 26 American Athletic Conference team titles since joining the conference in 2013, including seven trophies in the 2021 calendar year, and own 140 conference titles claimed in 15 sports in department history, led by 20 each for men’s tennis and men’s soccer. USF has claimed 74 men’s conference championships and 64 women’s titles, led by 14 in women’s tennis and 12 in volleyball. The Bulls have posted a combined annual grade-point average over 3.0 for more than eight straight years and have posted a program record of 17 straight semesters with a combined GPA over 3.0 as of the spring of 2023. USF has had over 600 student-athletes earn their degree since 2016-17.
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