“She Wasn’t Forced Out”: Did Wisconsin Badgers Volleyball’s Kelly Sheffield Make a Huge Mistake by Snubbing High School Star?

The NCAA Women’s Volleyball off-season trading is proving to be a boon for many teams and players. But, a lot of teams are experiencing the drainage of good talent from their teams as well. The Wisconsin Badgers led by head coach Kelly Sheffield might just be one of those teams.

Ella Wrobel of the Wisconsin Badgers has finally found a new home and has moved to Ohio State. Sadly, many Wisconsin fans don’t even know who Wrobel is, even though she was a high school star. Did Kelly Sheffield accidentally let a great gem escape from his grasp because of bad decision-making?

What did Kelly Sheffield say about Ella Wrobel?

Ella Wrobel recently posted some images of herself donning the Ohio State Buckeyes uniform. Shockingly, however, she hardly has any images on her Instagram page where she’s playing a match for the Wisconsin Badgers. Her posts show her with the Wisconsin uniform, but only on the sidelines. 

Speaking about Wrobel, Kelly Sheffield said, “Ella is a great player, a great teammate and she was all the way in… She’s a great competitor but there’s a lot of things she hasn’t been able to do during practices and during the off-seasons. It had her falling further and further behind others.” The Wisconsin Badgers HC also commented about her departure.

Sheffield noted, “She wasn’t forced out or asked to leave, but I think playing time in its current form right now would’ve been difficult. I think we were more likely to have (Julia) Orzol stepping into that outside hitter position next year than Ella.” Thus, while Sheffield didn’t give much playtime to Wrobel in her first two years, he wasn’t planning to do that in her third year as well. This comes as a big surprise since Sheffield has taken great care in developing every Wisconsin Badgers player. He led Wisconsin to its first title win. 

An error in judgment by the Wisconsin Badgers HC?

Kelly Sheffield took the reins of the Wisconsin Badgers in 2012 and started building the team’s new foundation immediately. He didn’t just clean Wisconsin’s image of being a lackluster program but made it a force one should be careful of. Especially in 2021, when the Badgers won the NCAA championship without losing a single match throughout the season.

But he failed to give Ella Wrobel the chances she needed. Wrobel was a 2021 U.S. Girls U18 National Team member and a 2021 AVCA High School All-Region member honoree as well. She had an astonishing average of 5.37 kills per set in high school in 2021. 

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But, she only played nine matches in 2022, and almost none in 2023. Wisconsin tried to acquire Taylor Landfair of Minnesota in its team but failed. This shows that they needed a great outside hitter. However, Wrobel didn’t get that place. Will this mistake come to bite back the Wisconsin Badgers and Kelly Sheffield?

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