Love for a sport comes from experiences and the people around you. UNF senior softball player Kelsey Vogel said she started playing softball at only six years old and has not missed a season since. 

Childhood Influences

Vogel started her softball career at only six years old when she joined an 8U (eight and under) recreational team. Her dad was her biggest motivator, even at such a young age. Vogel even attempted gymnastics, but it only lasted about two weeks before her dad noticed it was getting in the way of softball and motivated her to only focus on softball. 

Aside from her father, Vogel has another relationship that thrives within the softball world as well. Senior Taylor Shepard, another softball player here at UNF, was also Vogel’s childhood best friend. 

“Our parents are best friends, we grew up together, and so they put us both in the recreational softball leagues,” she said. 

Softball Seasons Growing Up

Vogel started playing on a travel softball team when she was only ten years old. Vogel said they would focus more on only traveling to closer spots, around two hours away, but as she got older, it started to become more and more of a time commitment. 

“Once I hit middle school we started traveling to further places like Virginia, Georgia, South Carolina,” she said. 

When Vogel entered high school, she started playing for her school’s team while also still playing on a travel team. 

“When I got to high school we started traveling nationally to places like California and Colorado,” she said. “Bigger places get more attention towards us for recruiting.”

Vogel said it was never a calm sport for her, being on the road constantly, away from home, but said it was always worth it. During her junior and senior years of high school at Lakewood Ranch, softball became rewarding as Vogel’s team won the state championship for the first time in the school’s history. 

“Freshman year we made it to the championship but we lost, and sophomore year was shut down due to Covid, so it felt like it was all building up to those final years,” she said. 

Being a Student Athlete

When Vogel came to the University of North Florida, she was surprised to see how time-consuming it can be to be a college athlete while going to school full-time.

To balance her school, sport and social life, Vogel has made it a point not to have any in-person classes. Mondays are the team’s “off day” from the sport, so Vogel tries to get as much work done as possible. On top of all of this, Vogel also has a part-time job. 

“You make time for what you want to do, so if I want to get food with some of the girls I will after practice,” she said. “Now that we are in the season it is much harder but you just have to fit as much as you can into the day.”

Arriving to UNF

Going into her senior year of high school, Vogel had no offers from colleges to play for their teams. During the year, Vogel went to a travel softball tournament in Gainesville. Her coach and the coach’s wife are UNF alums and they had connections to the current softball coach. 

“At that tournament Coach Jeff [Conrad] was there watching and reached out to my coach saying he was really interested in me,” she said. 

After that, Vogel set up a campus visit and she loved it. Not long after the visit, Vogel was offered a spot on the team. 

Osprey Softball

Last year, during Vogel’s third year with UNF, the team won its first-ever ASUN tournament. Unfortunately, for Vogel, she was out with a broken thumb during the tournament run. 

“Diving to tag a girl out I fell and broke my thumb in April (2025) and I was out for the rest of the season,” she said. 

This season, Vogel is back playing at second base. During her junior year, she was playing as the shortstop but did not perform as well as she wanted to. She plans to keep a good fielding percentage this season. 

“I really want to focus on having a good defense and keeping my stats up,” she said. 

Vogel has entered her final season with the mindset of “having nothing to lose” and putting it all out on the field. She wants to stay healthy, keep helping her team where she can and become ASUN tournament winners again. 

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