By the age of 13, Ciera Phelps found her love for volleyball. Junior year of high school rolled around, and Phelps also found a love for lacrosse. “I wanted something new and exciting to play,” Phelps said, “Lacrosse seemed interesting, so I went for it.” Phelps only got to play her junior year of high school due to club volleyball and trying to be recruited to college for volleyball as it was her main sport.

Ciera Phelps is now sophomore psychology major with an education minor here at Piedmont. She is on her second year of playing volleyball and lacrosse at Piedmont. In the 2020 season for lacrosse, the team needed some more players before the pandemic hit and since Phelps had played once before, she took the chance to play again in college. During the short season with six games, she had a total of 61 minutes and one draw control for the Lady Lions.

Looking now at the 2021 season, Phelps began to start in games for the Lady Lions as she played on the offensive side of the field. In Dallas, Texas, Phelps scored her first collegiate goal. “It was so awesome to score.” Phelps said, “We were playing like a team and I’m so thankful for my teammates setting me up to score.” On the other side of things, for the 2021 volleyball season, Phelps has achieved the spot as a middle for the team. This is her first time playing this new position. So far, Phelps has a career high with eight points for the team and three aces. “It’s been fun to learn a new position” Said Phelps, “It has its ups and downs but it for sure has been something interesting to do. There’s always more to get better at.”

The volleyball season has now ended for the Lady Lions, but lacrosse is still going on. Phelps had made the decision to play with her volleyball team while taking a break from lacrosse due to not being able to play two sports at once because of Covid-19 protocols at Piedmont. The volleyball team finished 4-11 and 2-6 in conference play. Phelps is back with the lacrosse team fulltime now as they are about to play in the first round of the conference tournament on Sunday, April 25th at 4 PM. Currently, Phelps and the women’s lacrosse team is 8-5 and 6-0 in conference going into conference playoffs.