PITTSBURGH — A former college volleyball player on Tuesday waived her right to a preliminary hearing on charges she suffocated the baby girl she secretly gave birth to in her on-campus apartment.

Teri Rhodes, 19, of Commerce, Mich., is now set to stand trial on charges including criminal homicide, abusing a corpse and concealing the death of a child.

Rhodes was a sophomore at Mercyhurst College in Erie when she gave birth Aug. 12, after having hidden and denied her pregnancy even during a team physical two days earlier, police said.

Police said she put the newborn in a plastic bag and left her on the floor of a bathtub as she showered, then left her apartment.

An assistant coach took her to a hospital a short time later, unaware she had given birth. She first informed police the baby was in a trash bin, then told them the newborn could be found in her bathroom.

An autopsy showed the baby was alive about 10 minutes before she suffocated, but investigators likely will never know how the newborn was killed, Erie County Coroner Lyell Cook said.

"It had to either be a hand suffocation or asphyxiation from being placed in the bag," he said Tuesday.

Rhodes' attorney, Philip Friedman of Erie, said that Rhodes continues to live with her parents in Michigan but otherwise declined to comment.