The Ivy League’s all-time home run king powered Penn back to the NCAA baseball tournament.
For a moment, it seemed, almost everyone in the stadium thought the baseball had been caught.
Columbia left fielder Cole Fellows had tracked back to the fence, timed his jump perfectly, and appeared to come down with a ball inside his glove—so much so that his Columbia teammates raced out of the dugout to celebrate and the ESPN+ announcer hollered, “He made the catch!”
But it was an optical illusion. Seconds later, Fellows looked at his glove and then at the ground in disbelief, with his hands over his head—a feeling of frustration that haunted so many opponents of Penn third baseman Wyatt Henseler C’24 over the last four years. And like so many other baseballs hit by Henseler, the Ivy League’s all-time home run king, this one too landed over the fence.
That home run was one of 54 that Henseler hit in a Penn uniform—a staggering 20 more than the previous Ivy League record holder—and helped propel the Quakers to an upset victory over top-seeded host Columbia in their opening game of this year’s Ivy League Tournament. Henseler would hit two more homers in the tourney, including one in the title game against Cornell, to power Penn to its second straight championship and a return trip to the NCAA Regionals.
“This year it took a lot more to get there than it did last year,” said Henseler of a team that sputtered early and ended up hovering around the .500 mark, barely sneaking into the Ivy tourney as the fourth seed. “But I always thought that we had it in us. It was just a matter of when it was going to click.”
Unlike last season, when the Quakers dominated the Ivies and followed their conference title with a couple of big postseason wins on the national stage [“Sports,” Jul|Aug 2023], Penn couldn’t rekindle any NCAA regional magic, falling to host Virginia and then St. John’s, in extra innings, to end their 2024 campaign. But just being there for a second straight season—after a 28-year NCAA tourney absence—was “special” for Henseler and the rest of the team’s graduating seniors. “No one on our team was hanging their heads,” said Henseler, who continued to make history in his final game, tying the program’s single-season hits record with his 72nd of the year.
The unanimous choice for Ivy League Player of the Year as well as the Ivy League Tournament’s Most Outstanding Player, Henseler graduated from Penn with his name all over the program and conference record books. In addition to obliterating the all-time Ivy League home run mark, he also broke conference records for career RBIs (189) and total bases (452) as well as program records for hits (232), runs (64), and doubles (50). The 14 homers he belted as a sophomore in 2022 was a single-season program record … which he proceeded to smash last season with 18 homers … which he again shattered this year with 22, establishing another Ivy record in the process.
“You never want to say records will never be broken, but there’s a good chance some of these are going to stand for a long time,” Penn head coach John Yurkow said, pointing out that Henseler’s career marks are even more impressive considering he only played an abbreviated freshman season in 2021 because of pandemic restrictions. And on top of his hitting prowess, Yurkow added, Henseler is “an incredible human being” who took a big role in the program’s community outreach efforts and was a leader in the clubhouse helping younger hitters.
The coach also praised Henseler’s humility. The third baseman downplayed all of his personal accolades, saying “the one stat I care about is that my class will go down as the winningest class in the program’s history.” But Henseler certainly valued all of his homers, particularly the ones in the Ivy League Tournament because of the jolt they gave his teammates. Two of his favorites, he said, were the one that fooled everyone against Columbia—because it provided a “huge momentum shift”—and his last one, a two-run blast in the first inning that set the tone in the title game against Cornell. “I wanted to do everything I could,” he said, “to prioritize that at bat more than any other one I’ve ever had.”
Henseler wasn’t always a power hitter. As a freshman at Emmaus (PA) High School, he made the varsity team as a pitcher. But in his first at bat, he launched one over the fence—one of his “coolest baseball memories.” He went on to become a great offensive player in high school—so much so that Yurkow recalled Penn assistant Mike Santello predicting he’d be a “special hitter” while recruiting him—but Henseler “was always prioritizing average” and driving the ball into the gaps. Breaking out as a sophomore at Penn with 14 home runs “just kind of happened,” he said. “It was never something I really pushed for or anticipated.”
One of Henseler’s most memorable college home runs was actually his first one, early in his sophomore season. It was initially ruled a foul ball, but after a review, umpires determined that it grazed the foul pole. Interestingly enough, he hit that long ball at Texas A&M, the school he’ll play for next season as a graduate transfer (since he has an extra-year of non-Ivy NCAA eligibility due to COVID). “My first real college baseball experience was there and it’s pretty crazy that it’ll end up being a full-circle moment with my last college baseball experience there,” he said.
Henseler has professional baseball aspirations and Yurkow believes the third baseman can not only get drafted but make it to all the way to the majors. In the meantime, however, Henseler’s ready to keep making a mark on the college game, add to his home run total, and perhaps return to the NCAA tournament with another team.
“I’m excited about the year,” he said, “but it’ll never overshadow my four years at Penn.” —DZ
