In 2024, Grainne Kelly will enter her second season as head coach of the women's lacrosse team.
Since graduating from IWU in 2019, Kelly has served as the Head Lacrosse Coach at Lockport Township High School. She has also worked as a club coach for the New Wave Lacrosse Club and Team One Lacrosse Club. Kelly served as the Assistant Coach of the women's lacrosse team from August 2021 until her promotion to Intermin Head Coach of the team in September 2022.
Since taking the reigns of the program, Kelly has coached four All-College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin honorees.
Kelly is a familiar face to the Titan lacrosse community, having donned the Green and White from 2016 to 2019. During her stint at IWU she was named the team captain in her junior and senior seasons. She was a part of the IWU's first College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin Tournament Championship in 2017, and then led the team to two more CCIW Tournament titles in 2018 and 2019. Kelly aided the Titans to three NCAA Tournament appearances, twice making it to the second round.
Kelly earned All-CCIW First Team honors three years in a row, and was also named All-Great Lakes Region by the Intercollegiate Women's Lacrosse Coaches Association twice. She was a second team selection as a junior and a first team pick as a senior. In 2018, she was named to the Google Cloud Academic All-District® 7 Division III Women's At-Large Team. In 2019, Kelly was selected to, and played in, the IWLCA Senior All Star Game.
She was a four-time Academic All-CCIW honoree, a Jack Swartz awardwinner in 2019, and the recipient of the CCIW's Merle Chapman Leadership Award in 2019. Kelly holds many records for the Titans, including points (280), points per game (3.50), goals (179), goals per game (2.24), shots attempted (412), shots per game (5.15), shots on goal (324), shots on goal per game (4.05), tied for man-up goals (6), and man-down goals (3). Kelly is second in games played donning the Green and White with 80. Her 96 points in 2018 is the most ever recorded by a Titan, and her 87 in 2019 is the second-most.
While coaching at Lockport Township, Kelly was voted the 2021 Positive Coach of the Year by the IGLCA.
Kelly, who graduated from IWU with a degree in psychology and double minored in Hispanic studies and coaching, received a Master of Arts in Secondary Education with a concentration in Psychology from Lewis University in December of 2021.
