About The Coaches
Nicolas Prandi
Prandi was born and raised in Argentina until the age of 12, when his family migrated to New York. He attended Gordon College, where he played D3 lacrosse and graduated with a teaching degree. In 2014, Prandi joined the Argentina Men’s National Lacrosse Team as a player and went on to compete in two World Championships (2014 and 2018) and a Latin American Cup (2015). After competing in Israel in 2018, he gladly switched to the coaching side of things, joining Coach Holly in a quest to start an Argentine Women’s National Lacrosse Team. Prandi has been coaching the women’s game for over 10 years, currently serving as an assistant coach at Endicott College, a head coach for the Boston Lacrosse Club, and the head coach for the Argentina Women’s Lacrosse team.
Holly Reilly
Reilly graduated from Princeton University in 2009 where she played lacrosse and field hockey all four years (her field hockey team took a trip to Argentina in 2007 to compete!). Following college graduation, she competed with Team USA in the 2009 and 2013 FIL World Championships winning gold medals. Reilly continued to compete in the three iterations of professional women's lacrosse in the United States, most recently with Athletes Unlimited in 2021 as a defender. During her experiences with Team USA, she felt the need for the growth of the sport internationally to achieve the vision of lacrosse in the Olympics and for players and fans to experience a truly competitive sport worldwide. When the position to coach Team Argentina presented itself, she jumped on it enthusiastically!
Where it all began…
In the early 2000s, Ricardo Acuña, president and founder of CODASPORTS ARGENTINA (Alternative Games and Sports Commission), alongside lacrosse enthusiast Scott Hylen, introduced Lacrosse in Argentina. They began a small Box Lacrosse league in Buenos Aires, which lasted a few months and reached up to 30 participants at its peak. The sport then went dormant until its resurgence in 2009 when Acuña, who had moved to the southern province of Chubut, met Rodrigo Miquelarena and offered him a chance to resurface the sport.
This re-emergence of lacrosse took the shape of a few friends using homemade lacrosse sticks, made from broomsticks and halved laundry detergent containers, to play makeshift pick-up lacrosse. Within a year of this occurrence, with the help of a couple of American reinforcements, Argentina Lacrosse produced its first national team and competed in the 2010 Men’s World Championship in Manchester, England.
From that moment forward, the Argentina Lacrosse Association was formed, and men’s teams represented the nation in tournaments in Denver (2014), Mexico (2015), and Israel (2018), while also holding coed in-country tournaments with local club teams from Buenos Aires, Chubut, and Rosario del Tala.
In 2018, the Argentine Lacrosse Association also decided to start an Argentine National Women’s Team. They asked Holly Reilly, a two-time gold winner with Team USA, and Nico Prandi, a three-time Team Argentina player, if they would take on this project together. They both excitedly accepted the call, and in 2019, they got to work. Five years later, the women’s team has participated in one World Championship and two PALA Sixes Cups, finishing in third place in both latter. tournaments.