Student-Athlete Spotlight: Anna Maria Carella Sets the Record Straight
Anna Maria Carella (#19) sets the ball to her teammate Maddie Wilkey (#5).
By Sam Bergstrom
On Sept. 5, the Catholic University women’s volleyball team defeated Muhlenburg in an exciting 3-2 set victory on the road. During this match, junior setter Anna Maria Carella recorded her 1,000th career assist as a Cardinal.
“I actually had no clue, because I don’t really ever check my stats,” Carella said when asked how she reacted after getting her 1000th assist.
Even though accolades rarely cross her mind, being celebrated by her teammates following this milestone helped her realize just how far she has come as a player.
Carella said players like Julia Raab, Kate Berra, Ava Borcky and Laci Freitas have all inspired her to shoot for the stars, and they have all helped her grow as a person off the court. To have all four by her side to celebrate was blissful, to say the least.
“It was really nice to be surrounded by girls who were genuinely excited for me,“ she said. “It felt like a tangible reward for all the hard work that I’ve been putting in.”
Throughout her time as a Cardinal, Carella has been dishing assists to her hitters like a poker dealer handing cards to players. Her 1,400 assists currently rank 10th-most all-time in program history, and she isn’t slowing down to get to 2,000.
Carella’s hard work has stemmed all the way from her childhood, and her journey at Catholic University has gone beyond being a superb setter.
Carella was raised in St. Petersburg, FL, and originally played volleyball in a third-grade YMCA program. Because of her “freakishly tall” height as a kid, she began her career as a middle blocker. She then transitioned to setter while playing club volleyball in fifth grade, and has remained there ever since.
While at St. Petersburg Catholic High School, Carella had her sights set on playing volleyball at New York University. During a visit to NYU’s volleyball camp in the summer of 2023, she met the then-Cardinals Head Coach Heather Stout, who told her to consider Catholic’s program.
“I visited, loved it, and the rest of his history,” Carella said.
Carella (left) with her fellow setters Kate Berra (center) and Chloe Mamrosch (right).
In Florida, not many high school students know about The Catholic University of America. The bold name even sounds “scary” to many, as she explained. For Carella, a tight-knit campus community, watching the seasons change, and unlimited access to D.C. make her Cardinal experience the opposite of scary.
“Living on a Metro stop is awesome, because a lot of schools say they’re in a city, but then, in reality, they’re 30 minutes away from anything of value,” she said. ”I like being close to city-like things. I love being able to explore.”
Carella’s prime opportunity to explore came last spring when she spent a semester abroad in Barcelona, Spain. While studying at Universitat Abat Oliba CEU, she travelled to 13 countries, with her favorite places being Amsterdam, the beaches of Croatia, and the sand dunes of Morocco.
She even got a taste of international volleyball, as she attended FC Barcelona volleyball matches and played with locals for fun on Barceloneta beach.
“It’s a really important feeling to feel out of place and feel somewhere unfamiliar and adapt,” she said. “I think the change of being in an entirely different country is going to make every other change in my life feel a little easier.”
Carella grew up trilingual in English, Spanish, and Italian thanks to her Mexican-raised mother and Italian-raised grandparents. By immersing herself in European culture, her language skills only became more polished.
With her mother being a child psychologist and her father a sports psychologist, Carella has also chosen psychology as her path of study. With the amount of setter dumps she pulls off, you can tell she knows how to get into her opponents’ heads.
Carella feels drawn to the sports psychology field because of her personal experiences. She carried a heavy offensive load during her freshman year, and the weight of expectations entering her sophomore year made her mentally overwhelmed.
“Mental health and sports are so closely tied that to deny the fact that sports psychology is necessary is foolish,” she echoed. “After having lots of struggles mentally within my sport and having an outlet to talk about it with my father, it inspired me to want to do that for other athletes.”
Outside of the classroom, Carella can be found in the radio studio of the Pryzbyla Student Center. She hosts a show called “ABC Radio,” with her two friends, junior finance and sales major Christina Stuart, and junior architecture major Ben LaRusse.
ABC Radio airs every Tuesday at 6:45, where all three will play their favorite music and chat about whatever comes to mind in between songs.
Carella initially joined the WCUA Radio Club in the fall of 2024 as an ode to Peter Stroma in “Pitch Perfect.” A freshman Carella walked into the WCUA interest meeting wearing a “Keith Richards For President” T-shirt and was complimented by LaRusse. Afterward, they both met Stuart, and they created their show that same night.
“That’s the best origin story ever,” she said proudly.
That same fall, the fifth-seeded Cardinals beat the fourth-seeded Susquehanna River Hawks in the first round of the 2024 Landmark Conference Tournament. During this match, Carella had 24 assists and 9 digs as Catholic won 3-1 in sets.
“That’s probably the most rewarding thing that’s happened to me, ever,” she said about Catholic’s upset over Susquehanna. “The feeling of playing a competitive game and winning is one that I’m going to chase probably for the rest of my life.”
This year, the women’s volleyball team yet again has the odds stacked against them. As the fifth seed, they will travel to Bethlehem, Pa., to play the fourth-seeded Moravian Greyhounds on Tuesday, November 10, at 7 P.M.
“Why not us? Why not now?” is the mentality that Carella and the Cards have had all season. It will especially ring true as they look to claim their first Landmark Tournament victory since 2024.
