Marie Schölzel is a German middle blocker whose senior career has combined more than a decade with the Germany Women’s National Volleyball Team and club seasons in Germany, Italy, Poland and Japan. Born in Berlin on August 1, 1997, the 190 cm blocker debuted for Germany in 2015 and reached 200 senior internationals in May 2026. She won Bundesliga titles with Schwerin in 2017 and 2018, added a third with Stuttgart in 2023, and later won the 2025 CEV Challenge Cup as a starting middle for Roma.
Her career has also included a substantial injury-and-return chapter. An ankle injury cost Schölzel the 2018 World Championship and eventually led to a 2019 loan to USC Münster for match practice. After rebuilding her career and later testing herself in Italy and Poland, she produced 372 points in her first Japanese SV.League season with Queenseis Kariya. Schölzel is now under contract with Minnesota Forge for the franchise’s inaugural 2027 Major League Volleyball season while remaining part of Germany’s senior national-team pool.
Player Information
| Field | Details |
|---|---|
| Full Name | Marie Schölzel |
| Date of Birth | August 1, 1997 |
| Place of Birth | Berlin, Germany |
| Nationality | German |
| Position | Middle Blocker |
| Height | 190 cm |
| Current Club | Minnesota Forge |
| Current Contract | 2027 Major League Volleyball season |
| Previous Club | Queenseis Kariya |
| National Team | Germany Women’s National Volleyball Team |
| National-Team Number | 14 |
| Senior National-Team Debut | 2015 |
| International Caps | 208 as of September 4, 2026 |
| Education | Business Informatics, FernUniversität in Hagen |
| @marie_schoelzel |
Volleyball World and the German federation list Schölzel at 190 cm, while the Japanese SV.League used 188 cm during her 2025–26 season. The current international-team figure of 190 cm is retained here because it is used by both Volleyball World and the DVV. Minnesota Forge lists her at 6’3″, effectively the same range.
Her current-club status requires one distinction. Schölzel has already signed with Minnesota Forge, but Major League Volleyball’s inaugural season does not begin until January 2027. Minnesota’s signing announcement confirms that her contract begins with the 2027 season; Queenseis Kariya therefore remains her most recently completed club season rather than an active overlapping assignment.
Early Life & Volleyball Beginnings
Schölzel grew up in Berlin without a family background built around professional sport. Volleyball entered her life at primary-school age, when her height and coordination brought her into the sport through school and local development pathways. She began with SG Rotation Prenzlauer Berg and quickly moved into increasingly competitive youth volleyball.
Her early results were substantial. Schölzel won a German U16 championship in 2011 and German U18 and U20 titles in 2014. She later moved into the VC Olympia Berlin development system, a pathway designed to expose leading German youth prospects to senior competition before they enter established Bundesliga clubs. A biographical profile from the German federation described how quickly her development accelerated: becoming a professional player happened sooner than she had originally imagined.
The jump became concrete in 2015. Schölzel entered Germany’s senior national-team program while still with VC Olympia and made her international debut at the Montreux tournament. Schwerin then moved earlier than originally planned to sign the 18-year-old middle. A contemporary account of the transfer noted that the club had initially considered recruiting her a year later but accelerated the move after her rapid progression into the senior national team.
Two years later, shortly before completing her Abitur, Schölzel signed her first full professional contract with Schwerin. The club’s decision reflected more than potential: by that stage she was already a senior international and had become part of a Bundesliga team competing for championships. The 2017 contract story captures how quickly she had moved from regional-level expectations to full professional volleyball.
Club Career
Schwerin: From Prospect to Bundesliga Champion
Schölzel joined Schweriner SC in 2015 after developing at VC Olympia Berlin. Her first seasons were spent within one of Germany’s most demanding domestic environments, where she trained alongside established national-team players while gradually taking on more first-team responsibility.
The breakthrough became visible in 2016–17. Schwerin reached the German Cup final and then won the Bundesliga championship, giving Schölzel her first senior league title. Rather than being a ceremonial young player around an experienced roster, she was already moving into meaningful middle-blocker minutes as the club returned to the top of German volleyball.
The following season confirmed that the first title had not been an isolated achievement. Schwerin won the 2017 German Supercup with Schölzel in the starting six, sweeping Stuttgart 3–0. The DVV’s official Supercup report names her among the starters as Schwerin controlled the match from the opening set.
Schwerin then successfully defended its Bundesliga title in 2018. By her early twenties, Schölzel had therefore gone from a youth-development player to a two-time German champion and regular senior international without needing a prolonged lower-level transition.
The 2018 Ankle Injury and USC Münster Loan
The first major disruption came immediately before the 2018 World Championship. Schölzel injured her ankle during Germany’s preparation camp in Frankfurt and was removed from the final roster. National-team coach Felix Koslowski described her at the time as already a fixed part of the German team despite her age, making the timing especially costly. The DVV’s World Championship injury update confirmed that Leonie Schwertmann replaced her for the tournament.
Returning to fitness did not automatically mean returning to normal match rhythm. In January 2019, Schwerin sent Schölzel on loan to USC Münster for the remainder of the season. The purpose was straightforward: she needed regular court time after months disrupted by the injury rather than another stretch competing for limited minutes within Schwerin’s established rotation.
That loan deserves more than a line in a transaction list because it changed the immediate priority of her career. Schölzel was no longer trying simply to collect another trophy with the strongest available roster; she needed enough repetitions to rebuild timing, confidence and physical continuity as a middle blocker. After the Münster spell, she returned to Schwerin for 2019–20.
Returning to Schwerin and Winning the German Cup
Schölzel’s second Schwerin phase did not immediately reproduce the championship finishes of 2017 and 2018. The 2019–20 league season was abandoned before the playoffs during the COVID-19 pandemic, with Schwerin leading the table when competition stopped. That meant a potentially significant team season ended without a championship being awarded.
The next campaign produced a different reward. Schwerin won the 2020–21 German Cup, adding a major domestic knockout title to Schölzel’s two league championships. By the time she left in 2021, she had spent the bulk of her early professional development with one organization and had moved through several different roles there: teenage prospect, championship middle, injured player rebuilding through a loan, and established senior starter.
Her departure therefore represented more than an ordinary one-year transfer. After six years tied to Schwerin, Schölzel chose to test herself outside Germany for the first time. Contemporary reporting described her as one of the long-serving core players leaving after the cup-winning season.
2021–22: First Overseas Season with Bergamo
Schölzel’s first foreign club was Volley Bergamo 1991 in Italy. Moving directly from the Bundesliga into Serie A1 exposed her to a deeper weekly middle-blocker field and a competition where quick-tempo offense, blocking discipline and tactical serving are tested against many of the world’s leading international players.
The season did not bring a trophy, but that is not what made the phase important. After spending almost her entire senior club career inside Schwerin’s familiar system, Bergamo required Schölzel to adapt to new setters, new coaching, a different league rhythm and a foreign professional environment for the first time.
That experience also widened the club profile she could offer Germany. She returned home in 2022 not as a player retreating from a failed foreign move, but as an international middle who had added a full Serie A1 season to years of Bundesliga experience.
2022–23: Bundesliga Champion with Stuttgart
Allianz MTV Stuttgart signed Schölzel for 2022–23 as part of a rebuilt middle-blocker group. The move immediately put her back into a title race, but in a different environment from the Schwerin teams with which she had won her first championships.
Her season included meaningful Champions League responsibility. In February 2023, Stuttgart defeated ŁKS Łódź 3–2 in a long European match, with Schölzel ending the contest herself by serving her third ace for match point. The club’s match report from the Łódź victory provides a useful example of her ability to contribute beyond first-tempo attacking and blocking.
The domestic season finished with Stuttgart defeating Potsdam to win the German championship. It was Schölzel’s third Bundesliga title, but the context was different from 2017 and 2018. She had returned from several seasons shaped by injury recovery, a pandemic-shortened campaign and her first year abroad, then immediately became part of another championship roster.
Stuttgart described her departure after the final as the end of “a very good year” for the middle blocker. Rather than renew after the title, Schölzel chose another foreign league and signed in Poland.
2023–24: Heavy Workload with Radomka Radom
The move to MOYA Radomka Radom produced no major trophy, but statistically it was one of Schölzel’s most informative seasons. She played 26 matches and 98 sets in the Polish Tauron Liga, scoring 225 points.
The league’s official season record breaks that production into 147 attack points, 66 block points and 12 aces. Schölzel converted 147 of 328 attacks for a 44.8% success rate and reached a single-match high of 17 points.
For a middle blocker, the 66 block points are particularly relevant. They show that her contribution was not being inflated by one exceptional attacking run; blocking remained a major scoring component over nearly 100 sets. The season also demonstrated durability. After several earlier career disruptions, Schölzel handled a full first-choice workload in another foreign league.
That continuity helped set up her return to Italy. Roma signed her for 2024–25, placing her in a season that would become one of the most contradictory—and ultimately memorable—of her career.
2024–25: Relegation Pressure and a European Trophy with Roma
Roma’s domestic season was difficult almost from the start. Injuries damaged the roster, results left the club near the bottom of Serie A1, and the team eventually finished in a relegation position by a narrow margin. Schölzel was therefore playing through a season where the domestic objective increasingly became survival rather than a playoff run.
At the same time, Roma’s European campaign moved in the opposite direction. Schölzel was named MVP in the club’s opening Challenge Cup match against Kelteks Karlovac after scoring ten points, giving an early indication that the competition could become a meaningful parallel storyline.
By the final against Chieri, Roma were clear underdogs. Schölzel scored 12 points in the five-set first-leg victory, and Roma returned home with an opportunity to close the tie. The second leg ended 3–1, giving Roma the 2025 CEV Challenge Cup and Schölzel the first international club trophy of her career.
The achievement mattered precisely because it came beside domestic failure rather than replacing it. Germany’s federation noted that Roma had ended the Serie A regular season second from bottom and on a relegation place, while Chieri were competing near the top of the league. The DVV account of the Challenge Cup victory captures the contrast between those two realities.
Schölzel started the decisive second leg in the middle. The European trophy did not erase the relegation, but it prevented a difficult season from being reduced to one negative result and showed that the same team could still perform under knockout pressure.
2025–26: A High-Production First Season in Japan
Schölzel moved to Queenseis Kariya for 2025–26, beginning her first professional season in Japan. The change introduced another tactical environment, with faster combination play, extensive defensive systems and a long regular-season calendar.
The move produced one of the strongest statistical club seasons of her career. Schölzel played 44 matches and 146 sets, scoring 372 points. Her total included 284 attack points, 79 block points and nine aces, while she finished with a 46% attacking success rate. Minnesota’s current roster biography highlights both the 372 points and 79 blocks when describing the season that preceded her move to the United States.
Those numbers reinforce the two-sided nature of her middle-blocker game. Nearly 80 blocks across the season made blocking a substantial part of her output, while 284 kills showed that she was not functioning only as a defensive specialist at the net.
The season also strengthened the case for Schölzel as a durable veteran after years in which several career chapters had been interrupted or transitional. A first season in a new continent became a full high-volume campaign rather than an adjustment year.
Minnesota Forge and the Move to Major League Volleyball
On May 29, 2026, the Minnesota franchise in Major League Volleyball announced that it had signed Schölzel for the league’s 2027 inaugural season. The organization later unveiled the Minnesota Forge identity in August.
Head coach Pedro Mendes described Schölzel as a complete middle blocker with the ability to attack in multiple ways and emphasized her read-blocking ability and volleyball IQ. Minnesota’s signing announcement also specifically highlighted the 372 points and 79 blocks from her Japanese season.
The move will make the United States the fifth national club environment of her senior career after Germany, Italy, Poland and Japan. It also arrives at a different stage from her first moves abroad. Bergamo signed a player entering her mid-twenties and learning a foreign league for the first time; Minnesota is receiving a middle with more than 200 German internationals and experience across several professional systems.
Club Career Timeline
| Seasons | Team | Country |
|---|---|---|
| 2015–2019 | SSC Palmberg Schwerin | Germany |
| 2019 | USC Münster — loan | Germany |
| 2019–2021 | SSC Palmberg Schwerin | Germany |
| 2021–2022 | Volley Bergamo 1991 | Italy |
| 2022–2023 | Allianz MTV Stuttgart | Germany |
| 2023–2024 | MOYA Radomka Radom | Poland |
| 2024–2025 | Roma Volley Club | Italy |
| 2025–2026 | Queenseis Kariya | Japan |
| 2027– | Minnesota Forge | United States |
National Team Career
Senior Debut and an Early Place in Germany’s Core
Schölzel entered Germany’s senior program in 2015, making her debut at the Montreux Volley Masters while still with VC Olympia Berlin. She was only 17 when the national-team training group was assembled and turned 18 later that summer. The early promotion meant that international volleyball developed alongside rather than after her club career.
She remained in the setup through the following seasons and had already become an established middle by the 2017 World Championship qualification campaign. Germany’s roster for that competition included Schölzel among a group drawn heavily from the Bundesliga, and her growing international workload paralleled her championship breakthrough at Schwerin.
The first major interruption came in 2018. Her ankle injury during World Championship preparation removed her from Germany’s final roster for Japan. The significance was greater than simply missing one tournament: national coach Felix Koslowski publicly described her as a fixed part of the team despite being only 21.
Rebuilding Into a Starting International Middle
Schölzel returned to sustained international duty after the injury and became a regular part of Germany’s middle rotation through the next Olympic cycle. The team reached the final of the European Olympic qualification tournament for Tokyo before losing the deciding match to Türkiye, leaving Germany without an Olympic place.
Her role by the 2021 European Championship was substantial rather than nominal. In a five-set victory over Bulgaria, Schölzel scored 13 points and converted 59% of her attacks, providing Germany with both first-tempo offense and blocking presence in a match that required a long comeback.
The 2022 World Championship supplied an even clearer example of her blocking value. Against Bulgaria, Germany produced 12 stuff blocks as a team; Schölzel was responsible for six of them. Volleyball World’s match report centered its summary on her blocking impact as Germany won 3–1.
That performance illustrates the role Schölzel held during this phase better than a tournament list would. She was not merely an experienced name on the roster—Germany could build individual matches around her ability to read opposing attackers and close the net.
2023: Most Experienced Player and Germany’s VNL Final-Round Run
By the start of the 2023 VNL, Schölzel had 142 senior caps. Germany went on to qualify for the VNL Final Round for the first time, with Schölzel part of the middle group alongside Camilla Weitzel, Monique Strubbe and Anastasia Cekulaev.
When EuroVolley arrived later that summer, her experience had climbed to 154 internationals. A detailed DVV profile described the 26-year-old as the most experienced player on Germany’s roster at the time. That status is notable because Schölzel was still in what would normally be considered a middle blocker’s prime years; her early 2015 debut had already given her almost a decade of senior international exposure.
Germany’s European Championship ended in the round of 16, but Schölzel’s place within the program remained secure. The summer reinforced a broader pattern: club changes were frequent after 2021, yet the national team provided continuity.
2024–25: Continued International Responsibility
Schölzel remained in Germany’s VNL and international plans through 2024 and 2025. Competition for middle-blocker minutes was increasing as Camilla Weitzel, Monique Strubbe and younger options became more established, so her role was no longer automatically identical from tournament to tournament.
That distinction matters. Experience did not make Schölzel a guaranteed first-choice starter in every match, but she continued to offer Germany a proven alternative capable of entering without changing the basic blocking system. Her large body of international work also gave the coaching staff a veteran middle around increasingly younger positional competition.
By 2025 she had completed her sixth VNL campaign and remained in the Germany group after winning the Challenge Cup with Roma. The national-team phase was becoming one of continuity and selective responsibility rather than the uninterrupted starter workload of some earlier summers.
2026: 200 Caps and a Veteran Rotation Role
Schölzel reached a major milestone before the 2026 VNL. During Germany’s May friendly against the Netherlands in Münster, she played her 200th senior international.
Her VNL role that summer was limited. Schölzel opened the competition as one of Germany’s four middles and made her 87th VNL appearance against Canada—a national record according to the DVV match report—but she left the active roster before the second competition week. Volleyball World records four points in her early 2026 VNL appearances: three in attack and one from block.
She returned for the European Championship and made Germany’s final 14-player roster. By then the middle group also included Weitzel, Cekulaev and Strubbe, meaning Schölzel entered the tournament as part of a competitive four-player rotation rather than as an automatic full-time starter. Germany advanced to the quarterfinals before losing 3–1 to Türkiye, with Schölzel used as a substitute during the match.
The German federation’s current roster lists her at 208 senior internationals as of September 4, 2026. That total places her among the most experienced active players in the program while also reflecting how her role has evolved: earlier cycles established her as a regular starting middle; the current group uses her experience within a deeper positional rotation.
Playing Style & Strengths
Schölzel’s game is built around read blocking, quick attacking and positional intelligence rather than overwhelming the net through exceptional height alone. At 190 cm, she is tall enough for elite middle-blocker volleyball but not unusually large by current international standards. Her effectiveness therefore depends heavily on reading the setter, closing lateral space and arriving with disciplined hand positioning.
That interpretation is supported by both match evidence and coaching evaluation. Minnesota coach Pedro Mendes specifically highlighted her ability as a read blocker, her volleyball IQ and her capacity to attack in multiple ways when the club announced her 2027 signing. Those qualities help explain why she has remained useful across contrasting systems in Germany, Italy, Poland and Japan.
The blocking numbers are substantial. At the 2022 World Championship, Schölzel produced six stuff blocks against Bulgaria in a single four-set match. During her 2023–24 Polish season, 66 of her 225 points came directly from blocks. In Japan, that figure rose to 79 blocks across 146 sets.
Her attacking role is more dependent on reception quality and setter connection, as is normal for a middle, but her production shows that she is not merely a blocking specialist. Radomka’s official data records a 44.8% attacking success rate across 328 swings, while her Japanese season produced 284 attack points. Those totals represent a player capable of carrying a meaningful first-tempo and transition workload over full seasons rather than contributing only occasional quick attacks.
Schölzel also offers serving value. It is not the defining part of her profile, but individual matches have shown that it can change momentum. Her three aces against ŁKS Łódź in the 2023 Champions League included the serve that ended Stuttgart’s five-set victory. The example matters because it shows a middle capable of producing direct pressure from the service line rather than simply delivering a low-risk rotation.
Her experience is another tactical asset. More than 200 national-team matches mean Schölzel has played under different German coaches, alongside multiple setter generations and within several club systems. That background is especially relevant to read blocking, where anticipation and opponent recognition can compensate for not being the tallest middle on the court.
Major Achievements
Selected Club Honors
| Year / Season | Competition | Result | Team |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2016–17 | German Bundesliga | Champion | SSC Palmberg Schwerin |
| 2017 | German Supercup | Champion | SSC Palmberg Schwerin |
| 2017–18 | German Bundesliga | Champion | SSC Palmberg Schwerin |
| 2020–21 | German Cup | Champion | SSC Palmberg Schwerin |
| 2022–23 | German Bundesliga | Champion | Allianz MTV Stuttgart |
| 2024–25 | CEV Challenge Cup | Champion | Roma Volley Club |
The 2025 Challenge Cup stands apart from Schölzel’s domestic titles because it was her first international club trophy. It also arrived during Roma’s relegation season, making it the clearest example in her career of a team producing a major knockout achievement while struggling badly in league play.
Off the Court
Schölzel has combined professional volleyball with university study. She pursued Business Informatics at FernUniversität in Hagen, using the distance-learning structure to work around club seasons, national-team travel and competition blocks. In a public post about balancing the two careers, she described how the flexibility of remote study made it possible to continue academic work while traveling through Japan, Brazil and South Korea with Germany.
The academic path has progressed beyond being a casual side project. FernUniversität currently lists Marie Schölzel, B.Sc. within its business faculty, and university records have also identified her among student assistants supporting research and teaching work.
Away from volleyball and study, Schölzel has spoken about a much slower hobby: jigsaw puzzles. A 2023 DVV profile described her preference for 1,000- and 2,000-piece puzzles and a 5,000-piece Disney puzzle completed with her family. The detail fits an athlete whose public life is otherwise dominated by travel, training and competition, giving her an activity built around patience rather than physical intensity.
Where Is Marie Schölzel Playing Now?
Marie Schölzel is under contract with Minnesota Forge for the inaugural 2027 Major League Volleyball season. She originally signed with the organization while it was still operating under the temporary MLV Minnesota identity, before the franchise unveiled the Minnesota Forge name in August 2026.
The league season begins in January 2027, so Schölzel has not yet accumulated match statistics for Minnesota. Her most recently completed club season was 2025–26 with Queenseis Kariya in Japan, where she scored 372 points and produced 79 blocks.
For Germany, Schölzel remains an active senior international. The DVV listed her on the 2026 European Championship roster and currently records 208 caps. Her role has shifted toward experienced rotation depth as Germany’s middle group has expanded, but she remained part of the squad through the EuroVolley quarterfinal run.
The Minnesota move will therefore begin from a position of substantial experience: Schölzel enters the new league as a three-time German champion, Challenge Cup winner, former Serie A and Tauron Liga middle, high-volume SV.League scorer and one of Germany’s most capped active players.
Recent Performance Snapshot
2025–26 SV.League Season
| Statistic | Total |
|---|---|
| Matches | 44 |
| Sets | 146 |
| Total Points | 372 |
| Attack Points | 284 |
| Block Points | 79 |
| Service Aces | 9 |
| Attack Success | 46.0% |
Schölzel’s Japanese season provides the strongest recent club baseline before her move to Minnesota. The volume is significant for a middle blocker: 372 points over 146 sets means she remained involved offensively throughout a long schedule rather than producing her total from a small sample.
The 79 blocks are equally important. They account for more than one fifth of her total scoring and fit the read-blocking profile Minnesota later emphasized when announcing her signing. Combined with 284 attack points, the numbers show balanced front-row production rather than reliance on a single scoring skill.
Germany in 2026
Schölzel’s international season looked very different. She reached her 200th cap in May, then played a reduced role during the first VNL week before dropping out of the active group for week two. Volleyball World credits her with four VNL points from that early block of matches.
She returned for EuroVolley, where Germany reached the quarterfinals. The contrast between club and national-team usage is useful context: Schölzel had just completed a high-volume starting season in Japan, but Germany now had several established middle blockers competing for two court positions. Her 2026 role was therefore defined more by experience and rotation value than by the automatic starting responsibility she carried during earlier national-team cycles.
Frequently Asked Questions
What position does Marie Schölzel play?
Marie Schölzel is a middle blocker. She has played the position throughout her senior club and international career and is listed as a middle by Germany, Volleyball World and Minnesota Forge.
How tall is Marie Schölzel?
Schölzel is listed at 190 cm by Volleyball World and the German Volleyball Federation. Minnesota Forge lists her at 6’3″. The Japanese SV.League used a slightly different 188 cm measurement during 2025–26.
Which club does Marie Schölzel play for?
Schölzel has signed with Minnesota Forge for the inaugural 2027 Major League Volleyball season. The season begins in January 2027. Her previous club was Queenseis Kariya in Japan.
How many matches has Marie Schölzel played for Germany?
The German federation lists Schölzel with 208 senior international appearances as of September 4, 2026. She reached her 200th cap against the Netherlands in May 2026.
When did Marie Schölzel debut for Germany?
She made her senior national-team debut in 2015 at the Montreux Volley Masters. She was still a teenager and playing for VC Olympia Berlin when she entered the senior program.
What major titles has Marie Schölzel won?
Her major club honors include three German Bundesliga championships—2017 and 2018 with Schwerin and 2023 with Stuttgart—the 2021 German Cup and the 2025 CEV Challenge Cup with Roma. The Challenge Cup was her first international club trophy.
What is Marie Schölzel’s Instagram?
Her public Instagram account is @marie_schoelzel.
References
- Minnesota Forge — Marie Schölzel roster profile
- Major League Volleyball — Marie Schölzel signing announcement
- German Volleyball Federation — 2026 women’s national-team roster
- German Volleyball Federation — Marie Schölzel’s 200th international match
- German Volleyball Federation — Marie Schölzel 2023 profile
- German Volleyball Federation — 2018 World Championship injury update
- German Volleyball Federation — Schwerin’s 2017 Supercup victory
- Allianz MTV Stuttgart — 2023 championship departures
- Tauron Liga — Marie Schölzel 2023–24 statistics
- German Volleyball Federation — Roma’s 2025 Challenge Cup title
- Roma Volley Club — Schölzel named MVP in Challenge Cup opener
- Volleyball World — Germany vs. Bulgaria at the 2022 World Championship
- FernUniversität in Hagen — Marie Schölzel profile
