Wisconsin commit Ella Wrobel excited to be part of national title defense
PLAINFIELD, Ill. (BVM) – Ella Wrobel wasn’t at the national title game, but she was there when the Wisconsin Badger volleyball team beat Louisville in the semifinals.
“Getting to watch them play that week was so amazing,” Wrobel said.
She then watched on TV as her future team won its first-ever national championship in an all-Big Ten title game against Nebraska. Now Wrobel can add a title defense to her freshman year of college.
“The fact that they won, I was already so excited to be there, but now I’m going into a national championship team; that’s amazing,” Wrobel said.
Wrobel will join a team that is returning a lot of players. The Badgers were a mixture of young talent with some veteran seniors, but even with a majority of the national title team returning, Wrobel is ready to compete for a starting spot.
“There’s obviously going to be a lot of competition but another one of my goals next year would be to start,” Wrobel said. “I think that watching the underclassmen this year kind of take on a big role like Anna Smrek… I think that motivates me more.”
Wrobel will enter Wisconsin as the only recruit for the Badgers in the Class of 2022, but that hasn’t phased the No. 11-ranked player in the nation according to PrepVolleyball.com.
“I don’t even feel like I am the only recruit for my class because I am already so close with some people on the team,” Wrobel said.
That is thanks to a recruiting process that has lasted years and started when Wrobel realized she could play volleyball at the collegiate level back in eighth grade. From there she began to receive interest from multiple colleges, but when her coach asked her if there was any school that hadn’t reached out yet that she wanted to talk to, she had one school in mind: Wisconsin.
“Shortly after that conversation I started talking to them and it always just held a special place in my heart,” Wrobel said. “It’s close to home, the program is good, people from my club have gone there and played and made such an impact on the program and then gone and played after college. It was always kind of in my top schools.”
Although her recruiting process was a little different due to rule changes in how colleges could recruit as well as COVID, the Badgers continuously made it to the top of her list. For a girl who didn’t have a dream school when she entered the recruiting process, she began to develop one the more she got to know Wisconsin.
“Once I started talking to them more and getting to know everyone better it turned into my dream school,” Wrobel said.
Wrobel looked at other schools and although she loved Wisconsin, she still wasn’t 100%, but that all changed during a conversation she had with Badger assistant coach Brittany Dildine.
“I remember being on the phone with Brittany and she said what more do you need to know, what more can we let you know about our program and what more did I need,” Wrobel said. “That was the moment where I was like there is nothing more that I need, I just know that I want to go here.”
Wrobel verbally committed in June of 2020 and then officially signed her national letter of intent in November.
“It was just like a moment of relief,” Wrobel said.
With her decision made, Wrobel was able to focus on volleyball and that has paid off. She was an alternate on the 2021 U.S. Girls U18 National Team and helped her club team, Sports Performance, finish second at the 2021 AAU National Championships. As a senior at Plainfield North High School, she led her team to a 32-7 record while averaging 5.37 kills and 2.44 digs per set and hit .415. She is currently the No. 1 volleyball player according to MaxPreps.com.
However, she isn’t done yet. Wrobel still wants to win a national title with her club team before she heads to Madison. But even that is in the long term preparing her to achieve the goal she has for next year when she is a Badger.
“My goal next year is to win another one,” Wrobel said.
