Kelsey Lovelace
Kelsey Lovelace was enjoying her first year of playing collegiate softball at Calumet College of St. Joseph until a life-altering event happened.
Earlier this month, four teammates of Lovelace had their apartment catch fire and needed a place to live. Lovelace helped them out in a time of need, and they are staying at Lovelace’s house with her other softball teammates.
“Since I’ve been up at college, our thing is, we’re all family, and I truly believe that. We always take care of each other,” said Lovelace, a 2024 Columbus North graduate. “Once the news got around that their house was on fire, I’m pretty sure every single person dropped what they were doing and we started going out and buying groceries for them or bought them blankets and pillows.”
Lovelace said there are four houses that are rented out for the softball team that are within a couple streets from each other. She said her teammates’ back end of the house caught fire. It occurred only a couple of days after the Crimson Wave got back from playing several games in Florida during the first week of March.
Lovelace was out grocery shopping when she got a voicemail from one of her roommates to call back immediately. When Lovelace did, that was when she was told her teammates’ house was on fire. Lovelace stopped what she was doing and drove back to the house to check on her teammates.
“It really felt like my house was burning down because they’re people who really mean a lot to me,” Lovelace said. “Those are my teammates, and I wanted to do everything I could. I stopped shopping immediately, and I went over.”
Lovelace said her teammates found out their house was burning down when an elderly woman was on the doorbell camera yelling, “Fire!”
When Lovelace got back to the house, there were several police vehicles, fire trucks and Calumet administrators already on the scene. That would be as close as she’d get to the scene.
“They did let some my teammates through, but I felt helpless honestly because my friends were all watching their house burn down,” Lovelace recalled.
Lovelace said the four roommates that lived in the house were junior Jamie Manojlovic, sophomore Allison Gonzalez and freshmen Camryn Nelson and Kaylee Tanuis. Manojlovic and Gonzalez are currently staying with their families since they live close to the campus. Nelson and Tanuis currently are staying with Lovelace.
Lovelace, along with her six other roommates, got blankets, pillows, food and other essentials for Nelson and Tanuis while staying in their house.
After the fire dissipated, Lovelace and the rest of the team gathered everything that was spared by the fire. Thankfully, all of the softball gear and uniforms were in the living room and were not burned, but the ceiling did collapse. Lovelace said the softball uniforms and gear needed cleaning since three of the roommates were catchers.
“Once the majority of our team could access to their house after they put out the flames, we went in there as quick as we could to pull out all of the stuff that our teammates needed,” Lovelace said. “They are so thankful because it could have been worse, they could have had nothing. They have their clothes, and they have their necessity items.”
Lovelace is extremely thankful that her teammates weren’t harmed, and will now resume to what they all love the most — playing softball. Calumet is scheduled visit IU Columbus for a doubleheader Saturday afternoon at Ceraland.
Lovelace is off to a great start to her freshman campaign, batting .280 with two doubles, two triples and 11 RBIs in 16 games so far. She also learned earlier this week that she made the President’s List for the first academic semester.
“It was really nice seeing everyone come together and all of the love and appreciation we do have for each other,” she said.
