ERIE — A former college volleyball player admitted in court Tuesday that she suffocated the baby she secretly gave birth to in a campus apartment in 2007.

Teri Rhodes, 19, of Commerce, Mich., pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and faces a maximum of 10 to 20 years in prison when she is sentenced later this year in Erie County Court. Other charges, including concealing the death of a child and abuse of a corpse, were dropped in exchange for the plea.

Rhodes, then a sophomore at Mercyhurst College, gave birth to the full-term baby girl in her on-campus apartment on Aug. 12.

Rhodes had passed a sports physical just two days before, police said. The doctor administering the physical asked if she was pregnant and she said she didn't think she was. The next day, an assistant volleyball coach asked Rhodes to get a pregnancy test. Her attorney, Philip Friedman, said his client had been "in a huge state of denial."

"She was an 18-year-old delivering in a dorm room by herself. The amount of pain, the amount of fear involved, all factors into what happened," Friedman said. Friedman said Rhodes was not a danger to society and was unlikely to repeat the crime.

The day Rhodes gave birth, authorities said she put the newborn in a plastic bag and left her on the floor of a bathtub. A search of her laptop computer found that she had researched "what can kill a fetus," according to authorities.