"We've had many incredible representatives of Western Athletics over the years and there are some who are their equals. But they (Brette Boesel and Abby Phelps) represent the best of everything that we want athletes at Western to be."
 
BELLINGHAM, Wash. --- Team chemistry, esprit de corps, camaraderie. Call it what you may.
 
If one were to pick the biggest factor behind the success of the 2018 Western Washington University (WWU) volleyball team, which enjoyed the best season in program history, togetherness would most likely be it.
 
Of course, there were other reasons. Talent for sure, four All-Americans. Veteran leadership with five seniors, essentially six. And smarts, seven league academic all-stars.
 
That year the Vikings reached the fifth and deciding game of the title match at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division II National Championship, finishing 30-4. They had a school record 30-match winning streak, won the Great Northwest Athletic Conference crown with a perfect 20-0 record, a conference first, and took the West Region title, playing host to the regional volleyball tournament for the first time since joining the NCAA in 1998.
 
Close team relations have always played a huge role in the unmatched success of head coach Diane Flick-Williams' program over her 21-year career. During that stretch, Western has won 80.4 percent (451-110) of its matches, the highest by any coach of any sport in school history.
 
Ask any current or former player coached by Flick-Williams to describe their WWU volleyball experience and one of the first words is "family."
   
The 2018 Vikings took togetherness to a new level, one that may be impossible for future teams to match, much less surpass. The players' unconditional love for one another was palpable to all fortunate enough to watch their matches or associate with them in any way.
 
"Every year we have a motto that summarizes who we are," said Flick-Williams. "The motto they came up with was 'Every Contact.' For most teams, that would mean making the most out of every physical touch on the ball, but for this group, it was important for them to expand that definition."
 
"'Every Contact' not only meant every pass, set, kill or block, but every interaction they had with anyone. If it was a teammate, a kid at a clinic, a recruit, a donor, a maintenance person, the checkout person, a student walking through campus, a professor, a community member, the ball person at an opposing gym … every contact with every person has the potential to make a difference, and they took great care of those contacts. They didn't live it for just the three hours of practice each day, they lived it all hours every day. That was their mission before they had a clue what would come of the season, and it fills my heart to see that simply who they were was so well received by so many."


2018 WWU Volleyball Hardware (GNAC champ, Regional title, National Runner-up)

How It All Began
 
The beginning of the unity shown by this dynamic and influential team might very well be traced to November of 2006 when a pair of fifth grade girls from two of the smallest towns in the state of Washington met for the first time. They became the closest of friends and remain so to this day.
 
Their mothers, who were both friends and coaches, wanted their daughters to be part of a club volleyball program being formed for younger girls in the area. The friendship that resulted between their daughters became the flash point of what WWU achieved both on and off the court 12 years later.
 
Their hometowns, located in the central part of the state, just north of Wenatchee, were separated by just 23 miles as the crow flies and 34 driving miles.
 
Brette Boesel hailed from Brewster, population 2,364, and Abby Phelps from Manson, population 1,374. It should be noted that a person traveling to Manson enters and leaves the same way.
 
First Impressions And More
 
Because the towns were far from the larger cities where tournaments were held, the moms, who co-coached the team, and their daughters often traveled in the Boesel's black Chevrolet Suburban.
 
That mode of transportation remained the same throughout the next few years and thousands of miles as a bond formed between a somewhat shy Boesel and a very outgoing Phelps.
 
Besides a lot of conversation and homework, other things Abby and Brette did on road trips were watch DVDs and episodes of "Grey's Anatomy," a medical drama television series.
 
"One time we drove down to Reno (Nevada)," recalled Phelps. "So that's like a 14-hour drive. We would put all the seats down and almost create a den, and her mom had a TV in the car, so we found our love for 'Grey's Anatomy' together. It's funny because on that show the main characters are best friends and they call each other 'their person,' and that's Brette and I. We kind of hung unto that a little bit. You know, 'You're my person.'"
 
Boesel said, "Through our evolution from small town volleyball, extending ourselves out to bigger clubs, new people, we always had each other. It was always a comfort to experience that and try new things with her. It worked out well that we liked the same things. I mean she knows me just about as much as I know myself, if not better because of us experiencing a lot of different sides of life even throughout college."
 
"… We'd play alongside one another during the week at club practice, then play against each other in high school and the next day be practicing together again. It was cool to have that friendship."
 
The two friends became standout athletes at their respective high schools. That was Brewster High for Boesel and Chelan High for Phelps, who had transferred from Manson Junior/Senior High School, just eight miles away, in the eighth grade to play against tougher competition.
 
Boesel competed in volleyball, basketball and track at BHS, and Phelps participated in volleyball, basketball, track and tennis at CHS.
 
"Small town. I loved it," said Boesel. "You get to grow up with everyone in your class in high school and create a lot of friendships with surrounding towns as well. I played three sports. There are very few athletes in small towns who don't do that, and I felt it was the most amazing opportunity."
 
And for Brette, another positive had to do with her roots. The Boesel name was revered in Brewster because of earlier athletic accomplishments through the years by family members and relatives.
 
"It was cool for me to grow up in a gym where I got to see my cousins faces on the walls, or my uncles, or my dad," she said. "And I got to see my best friend's parents up on the wall too. You definitely feel that this is something that has come full circle and you definitely have a sense of pride in being part of something that your family also was a part of."
 
In high school, Boesel and Phelps each earned numerous individual accolades and helped their teams to state playoff appearances and titles while facing one another all four years.
 
"We always played them (Brewster) no matter what, but my junior and senior years in high school they were in our league," Phelps said. "Brewster is a school that is right on the bubble between being an A or B school. During my first two years in high school, they were a B school and during my last two years they jumped up to A."
 
"In volleyball, Chelan usually had the upper hand even though Brewster was a very good team. And in basketball, Brewster usually had the upper hand. So, it was very, very competitive and her and I are extremely competitive people anyways. But my freshman year when I was a state champion in volleyball, she was right there in the stands being my biggest supporter; and our junior year when she won a state championship (in basketball), I was up in the stands being her biggest supporter."

 Finding Their Way To Western
 
Yes, the two friends were talented. But if not for a change in recruiting philosophy by the Vikings in 2012, neither Boesel nor Phelps might have been on Western's radar.
 
That year, Flick-Williams and James Suh, who has been the program's top assistant for all but Flick-Williams' first season at WWU, decided to take a closer look at athletes from smaller schools.
 
"Around that time we decided to put more emphasis on small town recruiting," Flick-Williams said. "We felt those athletes came with a mentality of no entitlement, gym rats who wanted to get better and loved sport, and we found that in the smaller towns. I mean we got athletes from Brewster, Centralia, Chelan, Colville and Oak Harbor. We're not talking about major metropolitan areas here."
 
During her two-plus decades on Western's sideline, all Flick-Williams' recruits have come from within state. In fact, only one of her players, one already here when Flick-Williams arrived, was from outside the state of Washington.
 
Now, there would be an added emphasis on small towns and the belief that playing multiple sports was an asset, not a liability. That led the Vikings to Boesel and Phelps.
 
When considering what college to attend, Phelps initially showed interest in St. Mary's College, a small Division I school located in Moraga, California. Her focus then shifted to DI University of Montana and Western.


 Boesel set

Boesel, only somewhat tongue in cheek, said she originally had just two criteria for choosing a school - warm weather and a beach. When Hawaii Pacific University showed interest, it quickly went to the top of her list.

Their mothers had told each of them not to discuss their recruitment with one another. They said the choice needed to be made individually and should not be influenced by what the other was doing.
 
"I don't remember being explicitly told I couldn't talk to Abby about that," said Boesel. "Abby was told and I might have been. We were definitely told that wherever you go, you're going to do it for you, you're not going to do it for your friend. In so many words, you're going to find the place where you want to be solely based on you. Obviously, we knew that Western was talking to both of us."
 
A few years before, Boesel's mom Marcy, had attended a coaches' clinic at Portland, Oregon, where Flick-Williams was a speaker. Marcy came away impressed, especially with the coach's philosophy of developing the whole person, not just the athlete.
 
When her daughter was a sophomore in high school, Marcy pushed her to attend Western's summer volleyball camp. At the time, Brette had no idea where WWU was even located.
 
At one point in the process, Western told Boesel that she was no longer being recruited because the program had all the setters it needed. Then one of those setters became iffy after suffering numerous concussions. Boesel found herself back in the mix. That was good because Hawaii Pacific did not pan out for her.
 
"Yes, they (Western) definitely rejected me," Boesel said laughing. "But apparently, I kept reaching out. I'm going to attribute that to my mother, who kept emailing them. She must have known, had a gut feeling deep down, that was where I should be going. To be honest, I'm not quite sure how all that went, but it worked out for me."
 
Phelps, who also had attended Viking summer camps, took a recruiting trip to Western and then went to visit Montana. Her choice became clear and, while returning home, she called to accept the Vikings' offer. A couple days later, Boesel signed with WWU.
 
Coming To The "Big City"
 
That first year at Western was quite a transition for the two small town girls, whose previous trips to Bellingham for summer camps or recruitment were mostly limited to campus. The school's enrollment of 16,000 was vastly larger than their hometowns.
 
"This probably will sound silly to everyone, said Boesel, "but we came to Bellingham and we're like, 'We're in the city! Like there's a mall, there's the university, one-way streets!' Like, I'm not kidding, we're driving down a street and we're saying, 'How are we going to get this down?' I'm not making this up. We're like, 'Oh, where are we?'"
 
That freshman year, they roomed together, took every class together and pretty much did everything else together.
 
"About the only time we were not with each other was when we were showering," said Phelps. "I'm not kidding. A lot of people had told us if you room with your best friend, you'll just have problems with that, but honestly we did not."
 
Boesel said, "When you have grown up with someone and you are so close to them, we quickly got past that stage of accommodating every little thing of your friend and that surface level stage where we're not going to fight, we're just not going to talk about it, so we can maintain our friendship. Nooo! We graduated quickly from that … Abby and I have had a lot of hard conversations. We've had some hard times together and I think that's the mark of a true friendship. When you're able to experience all those hardships with one another, and still there's never any doubt that you still love the other, and you still support the other 100 percent."
 
During their last four years at Western, Boesel and Phelps shared a house with teammates Michaela Hall and Aubrey Buckner (later Stephens).
 
"We went through each other's highs and we went through each other's lows," said Phelps of the foursome. "I mean college is hard, it's where you deconstruct everything that you've been taught about who you are and decide for yourself who you are going to be … And when you have people to walk through that with you, you create a bond with those people that I'd never experienced before."
 
Becoming A Viking
 
Western volleyball as coached by Flick-Williams is as much, if not more, about developing the person as it is the skills of volleyball.
 
"The sport is a great teacher of who you are because you can't hide under pressure or behind a screen, you just are who you are and you have teammates to be accountable to for your reactions," Flick-Williams said.
 
"So, we make it a priority to take those learning opportunities to examine how did you react? Why have you developed those coping skills? Do they work for you and your goals? How do they affect the people around you? And then we go further to develop empathy and ask the same questions but apply them to their teammates. How did they react? Why have they developed those coping skills? How does it affect you? How can you help them be better?"
 
This is what Boesel and Phelps faced as they began their redshirt year at Western in the fall of 2014. There were numerous drills where you had to 'Earn the Right.' The first was earning the right to practice. To do so, a player had to complete a certain number of repetitions of many ball-handling skills with the team. If anyone made an error, everyone had to start over.
 
"Western volleyball is so much more than playing the sport," Phelps explained. "It's about earning trust, sitting down and having hard conversations, listening to yourself in the mirror and dissecting who you really are. It's about growing up and becoming a young woman. And that's required each day. And that's hard, really hard, to be pushed like that and yet that is the reason why we were able to have the success we did."
 
"Sometimes it takes people a half year or a year to buy into that piece of it because there's a lot of soul searching and self-discovery that goes into that kind of growth," Boesel said. "That's not fun. I mean, I want to play volleyball. I don't want to talk about relationship building. So sometimes it takes a little while to be able to trust that the actual sole purpose of the people around you is to comfort you and challenge you and help you grow and support you through that and really to support your personal journey."
 
"But it was really cool," Boesel continued. "It was (why) Abby and I were both really drawn to this program. And it just solidified once we got here. We were like, 'Yes, this is so cool that they care about us as people and not just as players.' And that comes with its ups and downs obviously … You are really challenged, and at times it isn't fun (growing pains), but it's the most rewarding thing once you are done.
 
"We both had times of heartbreak and challenging relationships. Whenever one of us was going through a tough time, it was difficult for the other as well because we are so close. We were definitely each other's support system in every situation."


 Phelps kill

Startling Success
 
Four of the six-member 2014 recruiting class started in 2015 as redshirt freshmen. Besides Boesel at setter and Phelps at outside hitter, there were Michaela Hall (Centralia) and Kayleigh Harper (Oak Harbor), both middle blockers.
 
Western placed second in the GNAC (17-3), won the regional title, reached the national semifinals before losing to eventual champion Wheeling (West Virginia), finished 27-6, and was ranked No. 6 in the final national poll.
 
"We went into our freshman year without many expectations," Phelps said. "In our opening tournament in which we split four matches, our eyeballs were as big as saucers in losses to (No. 9) Wheeling and (No. 1) Tampa. But we came out of that feeling we would be good, although nobody else may have … We just had that mentality that we're not losing and fortunately for us we didn't have anything to compare it to … And we went into everything with this attitude of just another match and there was no extra pressure, no extra anything. And I believe that's why we did so well."
 
The Vikings reached the regional finals each of the next two seasons, They placed second in the GNAC (17-3) and were 23-8 overall in 2016 (No. 14 final ranking) and won the league title (19-1) and finished 27-4 in 2017 (No. 7 ranking).
 
Senior Leadership


Boesel sets up attack

One of the things that made for so much optimism heading into 2018 was a senior class that numbered five, really six. That was because one of those 2014 recruits, Harper, would have been a senior had she not sat out the 2017 season for personal reasons. Defensive specialist/libero Aubrey Buckner Stephens (Colville) had become a mainstay in 2017 and outside hitter Taylor Lyall (Bellingham/Sehome) would see considerable action in 2018.
 
"With our class so big, we had been working since our redshirt freshman year on really dialing in on team culture and relationships and all the different aspects that go into that." Boesel said. "We had been working on doing those things since we had walked through the door practically. So, by the time that we were seniors, we had always clicked, but now it was just seamless."
 
"When we came up with 'Every Contact,' it was every physical contact that we do will have a purpose with each other and other people. With your teammates, you're going to be intentional in the way you interact with them, challenge them, support them … And I remember having conversations in our team meetings about how we could touch the lives of other people. It doesn't have to be huge things. It can be a smile, it can be holding the door, or asking how their day is going.
 
"We really took hold of that and it really flowed into the kids clinics we have before every Saturday home match … These young girls, we're going to touch their lives, we're going to try and make their day great … And then we had community outreach as well.
 
"So, we really wanted to be, volleyball aside, intentional in how we interacted with others. That was really important to us. We had conversations about what that looks like, what that feels like and it was cool what that evolved into."
 
One example came prior to a match on a Saturday after Western had conducted a clinic that morning. During the introductions, the players line up across the floor and throw miniature volleyballs into the crowd.
 
It's one of the coolest things," said Boesel. "You see so many of the little faces that you saw that morning at the clinic. They bring their mom, they bring their dad, whoever. They bring their whole family and they are so excited to be there."
 
"There's a real cool picture of Gabby (Gunterman), the freshman. She was helping this one girl during a clinic and saw her that night. So, when it was her time to throw the (miniature) ball, she runs over and hands her the ball and that little girl's smile was incredible … That moment right there, that contact right there, was so special for Gabby and so special for that little girl. It just makes you so happy."
 
Unexpected Start
 
Everything looked to be in place for an exceptional season in 2018. But Western opened at the West Florida Invitational at Pensacola, Florida, in a way no one expected.
 
Three straight losses. Yes, all to nationally ranked teams, but three straight losses nonetheless before closing the tourney with its first victory.
 
Once we got that win, I never once thought about those matches again." Phelps said. "They weren't important at all to me. Yeah, that didn't go the way that we wanted it to, but we've improved and we're in a groove now and so it doesn't matter. And I think that's why we were able to recover the way that we did."
 
"I look back and there was just this calmness (following that tournament)," said Boesel. "I really don't know where that came from, but it was really cool because it just kind of like flowed through all of us ... We were all happy to be there, happy to play, and we're all competitive as heck and so we're just going to step on the court together and do our thing."
 
With a 1-3 record, the Vikings traveled to Azusa, California, for the D2 West Region Showcase. In their opening match, they faced No. 9-ranked Cal State San Bernardino, a perennial West Region power that had swept them in the previous year's regional final. Trailing 2 games to 1, they rallied for a 3-2 win (22-25, 25-22, 17-25, 25-17, 15-11). Little did they know at the time how that victory would impact their season.
 
Back on track, Western did not taste defeat again for three months, winning a school record 30 straight matches. And the Vikings ran their league winning streak to 30, while becoming the first team in GNAC history to post a perfect 20-0 conference mark. Only two of their 25 wins to close out the regular season went more than four games with 17 of them sweeps.
 
Regional Comes To Carver
 
On Sunday evening, Nov. 11, Western, 25-3, gathered in its team room to watch the NCAA II Selection Show on a big-screen TV. Everyone knew going in that the top seed and host of the West Regional would be either the Vikings or Cal State San Bernardino, 26-2.
 
As the team held its collective breath, the NCAA's Will Haskett announced, "… Starting out West, where the top seed belongs to Western Washington …" Bedlam erupted.
 
For the first time in program history the Vikings would host a regional, with the venue being the recently renovated Carver Gymnasium.
 
What was the determining factor in Western getting the nod? That come-from-behind win over the Coyotes on Aug. 30.
 
"It was pretty exciting being in the team room that night," said Flick-Williams. "It was probably the longest day of the year for us (waiting), but once we heard the news, it was one of the greatest moments we had together."
 
"Being able to experience (regionals) in our home gym was huge," said Boesel. "But what brought so much joy to us was knowing that we got to have our families, students and staff, and community as part of it. It was just really special for us to have the opportunity to share this with them."
 
"It was amazing to see people putting in so much extra time to make sure that everything ran so smoothly. And, most important, we got to keep practicing together, playing together."
 
Sweeping Cal State East Bay and Cal Poly Pomona to reach the regional final, the Vikings finished the season unbeaten at home in 13 matches by prevailing in a hard-fought, five-game win over then nationally No. 1-ranked Cal State San Bernardino (23-25, 25-22, 25-22, 21-25, 15-12) before a program-record crowd of 1,641.
 
"That was amazing," said Boesel. "It didn't really sink in about how special hosting a regional tournament was. And honestly, not until after it was done."
 

Regional Champions!

On To Nationals

The following week, Western, the No. 3 seed, flew to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for the NCAA II National Championships, being held as part of the Division II Fall Sports Festival, at the A.J. Palumbo Center on the campus of Duquesne University.
 
"We had a ton of friends and families come," said Boesel. "So, we got to experience that together, which really made it special for us. Even the families of the redshirts came. Players who hadn't been in a match all year. I think that is one of the greatest testaments to the culture and the investment that everyone felt we had regardless if you were on the court or not. It made us feel so loved and our experience so incredible."
 
"One thing we particularly enjoyed was the team outreach part of it. We went into a school and interacted with the kids. We read to them. We did activities with them. It was fun for us to be able to do that … It extended our theme through nationals."
 
The Vikings opened with a sweep of No. 6 seed Tarleton State University (Texas), followed by a 3-1 win over No. 7 seed Lewis University (Illinois), before suffering a heart-wrenching 3-2 loss to No. 1 seed University of Tampa (Florida) in the title match.
 
Western came out strong against Tampa, winning the first game 25-21. After Tampa won game two, 25-18, the Vikings took game three, 25-21, and looked to have the Spartans on the ropes in game four with a seven-point lead, 14-7. But Tampa was able to overcome that deficit for a 25-23 victory, sending the intensely contested match into a fifth and deciding game in which the Spartans gained an early lead and prevailed 15-11.
 
The 3-2 loss was the first for the Vikings in six 2018 matches going the distance.
 
Following the match, a devastated Boesel walked off the court sobbing uncontrollably.
 
"I was just overwhelmed," she said. "And we're in those locker cubicles and (redshirt) Tupu Lologo comes over to me and just holds me, a redshirt freshman and a sobbing senior. She doesn't care. She just comes and holds me for a very long time and it just melts me even more."
 
"That moment right there, I will always remember. I think how cool it is to have teammates like that, who are willing to do that, and just again so sad because I know those relationships were ending. It was an overwhelming feeling that I had been denying for a long time. Because I didn't want to think about this day."
 
Phelps said, "The tears weren't necessarily because we lost the national championship (match). I mean that sucks. But it's mostly for the change in roles that I know were going to happen because it's the last time I'm going to put on a Western jersey and that's tough because of the people I was surrounded by."
 
After the match, NCAA finals protocol calls for a 10-minute cooling off period followed by selected members of the losing team, then the winning team, going to the interview room for questions from the media.
 
Representing the Vikings were Boesel, Phelps and Coach Flick-Williams. Other WWU administrators in attendance were Director of Athletics Steve Card, Director of Athletic Communications Jeff Evans and Assistant Athletic Director for Compliance and Academics Butch Kamena.
 
"One of hardest things I've watched was that press conference after that national championship match loss," Kamena said. "You couldn't help but tear up, and yet at the same time you couldn't help but be so proud of them (Boesel and Phelps) for the way they handled that."
 
"They are two of the most amazing people I've ever meant, regardless of age. Incredible volleyball players and what the teams did when they were here demonstrates that. They were All-Americans and all of that, but they are more amazing people."


 Vikings At Nationals

Looking Back
 
"Even now it (national title match loss) stings," Boesel says over two years later. "But when it came to the relationships, nothing changed. And our relationships would not have been better or strengthened had we won. Who we were as a team did not change and would not have changed regardless of the outcome of that national championship."
 
"Don't get me wrong, it stings. When you find yourself in that situation, you want to win. Obviously, that's a given. But we still have each other. And because we had focused on our unity and our relationships every single moment, I believe that instead of being mad that we lost, even more so we were just so sad that it was over. That we wouldn't be with our people every single day of our lives anymore. Again, the title would have been really nice, it still stings, but the majority of that emotion was just shock and sadness that we're done."
 
"Honestly, for the most part, I think it would have been really sad (even if we had won) because it was over," said Phelps. "It (volleyball) had been such a huge part of my life for so long. Such a positive part of my life. What I would give right now to be able to go and practice at that high of a level. Just practice. I don't even want to play. I just want to practice with that group of girls in that gym. That's what I got to do every single day for five years. And it was like the absolute joy of my time at Western."
 
And of her friendship with Boesel.
 
"I don't really think we'll ever realize the capacity of our relationship or the significance of it," Phelps said.
 
Honors And Statistics
 
During their stay at Western, Boesel and Phelps and the other seniors helped the Vikings to four consecutive NCAA post-season appearances from 2015 to 2018, two trips to the Elite Eight (reached semifinals and final) and a combined record of 107-22 (83.0 percent).
 
Phelps capped her career by being named an American Volleyball Coaches Association first-team All-American and GNAC Player of the Year, both for the second straight season. Only the second player in conference history to receive first-team all-league honors four times, she finished with school and GNAC career records of 1,628 kills and 1,853 points. As a senior, she posted team bests of 473 kills and 530 points and was second in digs with 537. She became just the second Viking to lead the team in kills three times, and the first to do so since 1988.
 
Phelps, who also earned CoSIDA Academic All-District honors that season, was a three-time GNAC academic all-star and an eight-time conference Player of the Week during her career.
 
Boesel ranked eighth nationally in assists per game, averaging 12.02, to earn third-team All-America honors. She also was a GNAC academic all-star.
 
Boesel finished with 4,372 career assists (9.56 avg. per game), second most in school and GNAC history. She competed in all 129 Western matches and 457 games during her four years and was the team leader in assists four times, becoming only the second WWU player to achieve that.
 
Harper, a second-team All-American, ranked third nationally in hitting percentage at 41.0, second-best in school history, and eighth in blocks with 163. She also had 409 kills. As a senior in 2019, Harper received unanimous first-team All-America recognition and was selected GNAC Player of the Year. She set school and league records with 597 career blocks.
 
Boesel, Harper and Phelps were all named to the 2018 national all-tournament team.
 
Stephens, who received All-America honorable mention, had a team-best 593 digs, and Hall added 122 blocks and 292 kills.


"We did it!"
 
Life After Western
 
Boesel graduated from WWU in 2019 with a bachelor's degree in business administration and management. She was a graduate assistant coach for the Vikings that year and is now finishing her master's degree online through Liberty University and currently she's interning in the Nooksack Valley School District. Her desire is to be a school counselor. She wants to impact the lives of people as hers was by helping and challenging them to become the best version of themselves.
 
Phelps, also a 2019 Western graduate, earned a bachelor's degree in multidisciplinary studies. She was recently named head volleyball coach at her alma mater Chelan High School and will teach fifth grade at nearby Morgen Owings Elementary. Both positions begin in the fall of 2021.
 
With a passion for teaching and working with children, Phelps taught third grade the last two years at Wade King Elementary in Bellingham. Last spring, she was the junior varsity volleyball coach at Sehome (Bellingham) High School. She also worked six years with the Whatcom Academy of Volleyball Education (WAVE) club program and has been the sand volleyball coach for the Kahiau Volleyball Club in Chelan the past four summers.