TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 History is being made in Tampa! The University of South Florida launched a brand-new beach volleyball program this spring, and players like Zoey Mitchell are writing the first chapter.<\/p>\n
“It is really crazy, it is working every single day, and I think that being able to make something that we can leave a legacy and be proud of is super cool and I\u2019m just super stoked,” Mitchell said.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
\u00a0USF launched a brand-new beach volleyball team this year.
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\u00a0The roster was built from transfers who already played in college, and some recruits.
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\u00a0New head coach Pri Piantadosi-Lima helped launch the beach volleyball program at Eckard College, as well.
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\u00a0The Bulls host tournaments at Clearwater Beach, but a new beach volleyball facility is being built on campus.<\/p>\n
Mitchell is a redshirt sophomore who transfered to USF this year from USC, one of the premier beach volleyball teams in the country. But the Bulls started building this roster a year and a half ago.<\/p>\n
Isabella Almeida was one of the first to transfer in and spent all of 2025 setting the foundation for the program.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s been so special to be here since the beginning. I think we\u2019re building something great, and having those girls come in when we\u2019re ready and having been prepared is awesome. They\u2019re adding so much for our team and we\u2019re ready,” Almeida said.<\/p>\n
Starting a new program is quite a challenge, but head coach Pri Piantadosi-Lima has done this before. She helped launch the very first Division-II beach volleyball program right across the Bay at Eckard College in St. Petersburg. It went well, so USF hired her to do it in Tampa.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s been so much fun. This group of ladies \u2014 we have 12 newcomers between freshmen and transfers \u2014 and they came in and fit like a glove. The returners, they worked so hard to make this the place to be, and I always tell them, ‘I hope that you get to love USF, not just like USF,’ and I think they\u2019re loving it. They\u2019re doing a great job,” Piantadosi-Lima said.<\/p>\n
The Bulls practice at McDugald Park close to campus, and the community is already buying in. When the cars drive by the park while the team is practicing, they honk their horn, and the players and coaches respond by yelling “Go Bulls” and putting up the Horns on their hands.<\/p>\n
With the community already invested, they want to put a good product out there in the first year and prove that they belong at this level.<\/p>\n
“We\u2019re gonna be very dynamic on the sand, which is hard to be, physically they\u2019re in great shape, so they can play their best physical game for the entire tournament. And we\u2019re gonna have some good complex plays that hopefully we\u2019re gonna catch some people off guard and get some really fun points,” Piantadosi-Lima said.<\/p>\n
USF hosts its home tournaments at Clearwater Beach, for now. The school already announced a brand-new beach volleyball facilitiy will be built on campus next to the tennis courts.<\/p>\n
For now, these players are treasuring this opportunity.<\/p>\n
“We want it so bad, like some of these girls have been waiting a whole year for this to happen, and, like, to be able to come in and help that happen and be able to make history, it\u2019s huge and we\u2019re hungry for it. We want it,” Mitchell said.<\/p>\n
These Bulls are setting the foundation for years to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 History is being made in Tampa! The University of South Florida launched a brand-new beach…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":226970,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[10929,1238,274,111,1236,70639,115,110,135,137,136,278,19211,835],"class_list":{"0":"post-226969","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa","8":"tag-app-college-sports","9":"tag-app-sports","10":"tag-app-top-stories","11":"tag-college-sports","12":"tag-florida-sports","13":"tag-michael-epps","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-tampa","17":"tag-tampa-headlines","18":"tag-tampa-news","19":"tag-top-stories","20":"tag-usf-bulls","21":"tag-vod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/226970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}