Sophia Pierce, a 2022 graduate of Hillsdale College and a former guard on the Chargers basketball team for four seasons from 2018 to 2022 has returned to the Chargers as a women's basketball assistant coach, beginning in the summer of 2025.

Pierce comes back to Hillsdale after a successful run as an assistant coach job at Aurora University, a Division III school in Illinois.

Working under Aurora head coach Ryan Rebsom, Pierce helped the Spartans excel during her three seasons on the staff, as Aurora posted three straight winning records from 2022 to 2025, including back-to-back 20-plus win seasons for the first time in the program's history. 

While at Aurora, Pierce also got valuable experience working as an instructor for three straight summers with Point Guard College camps, one of the top camps for youth perimeter players in the country. She also took charge of running her own squad while serving as head coach of the Aurora junior varsity team, and as the 16U regional head coach for the M14 AAU Program in the summer of 2024.

A native of Grabill, Indiana and a graduate of Leo High School, Pierce was recruited by former head coach Matt Fritsche and enrolled at Hillsdale midway through the 2018-19 school year. Over four years with the Chargers, she played in 48 games, contributing as a senior to a 13-14 finish that represented a nine-win turnaround from the previous season. That 2021-22 campaign was the first major step in a rebuild that saw the Chargers finish runner-up in the G-MAC and earn their first NCAA Tournament bid since 2018 this past season.

Pierce's ties to Hillsdale are deep and go beyond just her playing career with the Chargers. Her younger sister, Chloe, is an important player on the Hillsdale College volleyball team, entering her fourth season with the Chargers in the fall of 2025.

A Sociology major at Hillsdale with a minor in Psychology, Pierce earned her Bachelor's Degree from Hillsdale in the spring of 2022, and also has completed a Masters of Business Administration from Aurora University in May of 2024.