Wyatt Henseler has known for a long time that he wanted to extend his high school baseball career to the Division 1 college level. He’s also known that going to a Division 1 school for baseball alone wasn’t part of the plan.

The school had to have a great academic curriculum to give him something more than just four more years of baseball. In addition to those needs, Henseler wanted a school that was relatively close to home so he could continue to spend time with his family.

The search took him to Lehigh, St. Joe’s and the University of Pennsylvania. In the end, Henseler decided that Penn had everything he wanted in a school as far as academics, athletics and distance.

“I just wanted to get to the best school possible that had what I wanted,” he said. “I probably could have gone to bigger D-1 schools with higher profile baseball programs, but I wouldn’t have a chance to play right away. At Penn, there’s a chance that if I do well, I could be playing as a freshman.”

In his four seasons at Emmaus, Henseler went from pitching to being the team’s designated hitter and then to playing left field and then moving into the infield. Early on, his offense wasn’t where the coaches needed it to be, so he was pitching.

When he finally got an at-bat late in a game he hit a home run. That opened the door to a bigger role with the team, but his passion for being better grew out of adversity.

“In my freshman season I was playing left field in the District 11 semifinal game against Liberty and the shortstop and I both messed up on a key play and we lost the game,” Henseler said. “That play made me hungry to be better and I just started to put in more work on every facet of the game.”

Eventually, Henseler became good enough that some major league scouts put him on their radar and started to show interest in him.

While that can be pretty heady stuff for a young guy, Henseler said his family tried to keep him grounded and focused not only on playing baseball but on looking at college as something more than just an extension to play the game.

“My parents always stressed to me that baseball is going to end someday,” said Henseler. “My attitude now is that if something happens and I have the opportunity to play after college, that’s great and I’m always going to work as hard as possible to make that happen, but I know the priority is on academics and doing well.

“Baseball has made it possible for me to play at Penn and I’m fortunate to have that but mainly I’m fortunate because having baseball pay for my education at Penn will set me up for the rest of my life if I do well academically.”

While Henseler is focused on academics, he is still not quite sure what major he’ll pursue. He has until the end of his first semester as a sophomore to decide officially. For now, he’s leaning toward business management.

“Penn has a great course selection so I could go a couple different ways,” Henseler said. “I have time to decide and I’m planning on figuring it out after my freshman year. I know that whatever major I take, having a degree from an Ivy League school is going to put me in a good spot.”

As for missing his senior season in high school, Henseler used the word “devastating” to describe the feeling he felt when the season was canceled. The Hornets went to the district final last season, where they lost to Liberty.

Henseler was hoping to get some revenge on the Hurricanes. Emmaus has a family type atmosphere around the team and as a senior, he was hoping to help mentor some of the young players. He was also hoping for big things personally.

“I didn’t have any exact goals, but I was going to play in a way that I might wind up being the league MVP,” said Henseler. “My biggest goals were for the team, but I also knew that the team would be at its best if I could give them the best version of me on the field and help the younger guys through the season.

“It would have been great to see just how far we could have gone because we have something special going at Emmaus.”