Growing up, Julia Carr looked up to her older sisters Maddie and Mollie, who starred in lacrosse at Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart in Bethesda, Maryland, and then went on to star in that sport at the University of Notre Dame.

Julia Carr, who began playing lacrosse when she was a little girl, has followed in her big sisters’ footsteps, also starring in lacrosse at Stone Ridge, and after graduating from there this spring, she will likewise compete on the women’s lacrosse team at Notre Dame.

“I definitely learned that hard-working mentality from them, seeing them be so successful and knowing I wanted to live up to that legacy they were leaving behind,” Julia Carr said.

As a Notre Dame freshman, she’ll get to be on the same team as Mollie, who will be a senior at the university, just as they were teammates four years ago for one season at Stone Ridge.

Maddie Carr, who played midfield for Notre Dame’s lacrosse team, graduated from there in 2020. A member of Stone Ridge’s class of 2016, she now is a second grade teacher at a Catholic school in the Los Angeles area.

Mollie Carr plays the attack position on Notre Dame’s lacrosse team. Now a junior there studying finance, she graduated from Stone Ridge in 2018.

Their youngest sister, Katherine Carr, is a freshman at Stone Ridge this year and plays midfield on the school’s varsity lacrosse team.

Julia Carr in Stone Ridge’s class of 2021, a four-year varsity athlete who plays midfield on the lacrosse team, has also competed in field hockey and basketball for the Stone Ridge Gators.

“I love how competitive it (lacrosse) is. Coming from a family of five kids, we all played multiple sports. It was a competitive household,” Julia Carr said.

Their parents, Chuck and Stacy Carr, both work as accountants, and the family members are parishioners of St. Raphael in Rockville. Julia Carr’s brother Jonathan began the siblings’ Notre Dame tradition, graduating from there after earlier attending Georgetown Preparatory School in North Bethesda and Mater Dei School in Bethesda. He now works in Notre Dame’s investment office.

Julia Carr said in addition to enjoying competing on the playing field, she has appreciated the team aspect of sports.

“Just being part of a team, which is something you can apply not only to sports, but to anything in life, being a teammate, knowing when to step up as a leader, knowing when to play your role,” she said.

Now in her 14^th year at Stone Ridge, Julia Carr began as a pre-kindergarten student there and will finish as a graduating senior, and she has friends she met in her first year and new friends she met during her high school years “that I know I’ll keep in touch with forever.”

In the classroom and in sports there, Carr learned the value of hard work. “I think that if I work hard enough, if I give enough effort, I can achieve whatever I want. My success will come if I’m putting in my work,” she said.

She added that Stone Ridge, which is sponsored by the Religious of the Sacred Heart, “has definitely formed me to be who I am… The main thing I’ve learned is always to put others before myself and to live a Christ-like life.”

Carr said the school’s Social Action program, where students gather for school assemblies and learn about Catholic social teaching and later volunteer in community service activities off campus, helped her “to take on the world with a Catholic mindset. We got to go to different sites and apply what we were learning.”

In her junior year, she volunteered at Carl Sandburg Learning Center in Rockville, helping in the classroom at an elementary school for children with disabilities. That experience, she said, taught her to approach others with patience, acceptance and understanding.

In her sophomore year at Stone Ridge, Carr visited a nursing home and helped out at a soup kitchen and an inner-city school.

“It’s definitely one thing to be learning about poverty and the education system, but to be able to see it firsthand, it does open your eyes to the magnitude of these issues. It’s not some faraway thing, it’s happening just down the road,” she said.

Carr said she learned that “you can do something small to make a difference. That’s something you can bring back to the school. We’re so fortunate here, and we can bring that same mentality of helping each other back here.”

As a member of Stone Ridge’s pro-life club, Gators for Life, Carr helped organize Stone Ridge’s annual Mass for Life.

“My parents have always taught us about the pro-life issues and how important it is to give respect to all life,” she said. “Being raised in a household that preaches that message, it became a core value.”

When the pandemic shutdown happened last spring and school campuses closed for safety reasons, Stone Ridge like other schools transitioned to virtual classes.

“As a student, it was tough. Spring is my favorite time of the year, because it’s lacrosse season and also because it’s very busy,” she said, noting how the lacrosse season stopped after only a few games.

In October, students returned to Stone Ridge’s campus on a partial basis while virtual learning continued. Then when coronavirus cases increased in the winter, the school again shifted to virtual learning until students were welcomed back as cases decreased in the spring.

“As of March, all the seniors are back in full-time, just so we could end the year together,” Carr said.

This spring, lacrosse season resumed. “We’ve been having a pretty normal season,” said Carr, who added that the competition features one key difference – “(We’re) all masked, which is tough to run around with when it’s hot.”

Carr said her immediate family fortunately was able to stay well during the pandemic, but having everyone together at their house did present its challenges, as their parents worked at home, with Maddie and Mollie back home from college doing course work there, and Julia and her younger sister Katherine taking their Stone Ridge classes at home.

“It was hard at first to find space in my house,” she said, explaining that sometimes that involved “telling each other to turn down the volume.” Carr added that eventually, “We got in the groove and made it work.”

Carr said her economics class during the pandemic offered insights on the real-world scenario of the economic shutdown caused by the crisis. “You were able to understand what was happening,” she said.

On June 5, Carr and her fellow Stone Ridge seniors will participate in an outdoor graduation ceremony on campus, in front of Hamilton House. “It should be as normal as we can get,” she said.

At Notre Dame, Carr will be a student at the Mendoza College of Business.

“Business seemed familiar, like the way to go with my family’s history,” she said.

As for her dreams for the future, Carr said, “I definitely want to have a successful career. I also want to be a mom and have a lot of kids. I know the value of having a big family.”

And at Notre Dame, Julia Carr will again be with her family, as a lacrosse teammate with her sister Mollie and being able to see her brother Jonathan who works there.

“It’ll be nice to have a little family up there,” she said.