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Flood Wants Impact As Local Sun Devil Using Fifth Year

Flood Wants Impact As Local Sun Devil Using Fifth YearFlood Wants Impact As Local Sun Devil Using Fifth Year

By Olivia Dowell, media relations intern

Back for a fifth season, Cierra Flood is bringing her experience and passion back to Sun Devil Beach Volleyball for the 2022 season. With four years under her belt, the Phoenix native is ready to push the Sand Devils to a new level in her final season.

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The spring 2021 season saw the Sun Devils squad return to competition, but it was not what then-senior Flood had expected it to be. After it was announced in October 2020 that all athletes were receiving another year of eligibility due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Flood began reflecting on her career as a Sun Devil.

“I started thinking about it during last season, but I was still kind of on the fence,” Flood said. “Then it was our last game in the Pac-12 (championships). We got done playing and I was just in tears. It's not the same after college, then you're just kind of playing for fun. So that's when I knew for sure that I wanted to come back and do this again.”

Flood has played a key role in each of her four seasons, earning double-digit wins in all but one season, which was the abbreviated 2020 season. Last season, Flood led the Sand Devils in total wins, pairing with teammate Sarah Waters in every dual. Individually, Flood also ranks sixth in program history in career wins with 51.

With her return this season, head coach Brad Keenan said Flood’s leadership and work ethic are the biggest things for ASU in this spring’s season, as Flood’s currently in the top-10 in total partner wins with two of the partners she’s had during her time as a Sun Devil.

“She has been one of the most consistent players,” Keenan said. “She’s consistently moved up the roster every year. Cierra’s ability to take what the coaches tell her, and immediately incorporate it into her game is an extremely rare talent.”

Flood is an in-state product and attended Xavier College Prep in Phoenix, where she graduated in 2017 and also played indoor volleyball for a couple of seasons. Flood said along with ASU being a big school and having an established beach volleyball program, she also enjoys the proximity to her family along with connections she’s made throughout her time playing the sport.

Flood said though Arizona technically doesn’t have any beaches, she considers it to be the next best thing for the ability to play in the sand year-round.

“I don't know how they do that in snowy places,” Flood said. “I think that also is what helped beach volleyball grow in Arizona because whenever I was in high school, it was just taking off, and now it's really established and there's a bunch of different clubs.”

Susan Contreras, who works with athletic supervision and is an assistant beach volleyball coach at Xavier, said having Flood close to the area as a college student-athlete is impactful as she is willing to come back and help out at her former high school.

“She came back and shared her knowledge with other players,” Contreras said. “Not only is it her talent as a volleyball player, but she has what it takes to be a college player academically and athletically. Then she’s also having young girls look up to her and thinking that someday they could be just like her.”

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In addition to helping out at her high school, Flood also received recognition for her academics as she was named to the Pac-12 Spring Academic Roll in 2020 and 2021. Contreras said throughout Flood’s time at Xavier that she focused greatly on getting better and also believed she did an excellent job managing her time with playing for the Gators along with having practice and matches for club beach volleyball as well, along with her schoolwork.

When it came down to a decision, Flood said it was the best choice for her to stay in Tempe for one last season while getting a master’s degree that she’s passionate about. 

“This is the best-case scenario, because I get to play and stay here and do a degree that I'm going to use and have because I was going to do that anyway,” Flood said. “So it definitely worked out that I can do a program that I really enjoy and wanted to do in the first place and get to play again.”

Going into one final season, Flood said she plans on soaking it all in with experiences she and the Sand Devils did not get to experience last year as a team. With a packed 2022 schedule and a brand new facility for the team on campus, it will be a season to remember. She hopes to keep building connections with her current teammates as well as new ones.

“Definitely this year, I am not taking anything for granted,” Flood said. “I'm trying to enjoy those things that we didn't have last year, even just getting to go in the weight room altogether again. That was just really hard last year to not be able to do that together. So definitely not taking that for granted and enjoying the normal experiences of being connected and being able to do team bonding.”