Yorkville’s Kayla Kersting finds herself in an Iowa state of mind these days, and that’s a great place to be for the junior catcher/third baseman.

In November, Kersting committed to a Big Ten scholarship offer from Hawkeyes coach Renee Gillispie. Kersting will be going to her dream school after she graduates high school in 2026.

“Both her parents went to Iowa schools, she’s super stoked about it,” Foxes coach Jory Regnier said. “I know that’s the school she wanted to be at.”

Both parents grew up in Spencer, Iowa in the northwest corner of the state. Her dad, Marc, who teaches and coaches football at Oswego, graduated from Iowa and played football there. Her mom, Ronette, went to work for Caterpillar after graduating from Iowa State.

Blake Kersting, a football standout at Yorkville who wants to get into coaching, volunteered as an equipment manager last season for the Cyclones in football and landed a job for this year as a student assistant, helping coach the defensive line.

“It’s a cool opportunity for him to do that,” Regnier said. “They’re a great family, and those kids know expectations and know they have to work for it. Nothing is given.”

It’s also why Regnier, understandably, is stoked about having Kayla for this season and next.

She was a seamless addition to a team loaded with veteran standouts as a freshman by catching senior pitching standout Madi Reeves, who led the Foxes to a second-place finish in Class 4A.

Kersting hit .447 with six home runs and 37 RBIs to earn second team all-state honors. Last season was a transition for the Foxes (18-18) and she did it again, hitting .442 with nine homers and 30 RBIs while repeating as second team all-state.

“Kayla plays a really good third base as well as catching,” Regnier said. “On her travel team, she primarily plays third base and catcher is secondary. She’s been playing a little of both here, too.

“It gives us a different dynamic.”

The Foxes are off to a 4-0 start, with all the games played last week on their spring trip to Gulf Shores, Alabama. A Wednesday home game with Ottawa was rescheduled for Monday.

Kersting, who threw out 10 runners trying to steal as a freshman, has taken individual catching lessons since the summer before that year from Mike Kuefler, who also coaches at Kaneland.

“He’s a super-good coach,” Kersting said. “He’s really into mechanics and the basics. I feel like, for me, that’s something I needed to do — go back to basics and refine all my skills, and he does that.

“I’m with him all winter from October until we come out here and play.”

Regnier said Kersting can hit for power but is also incredibly athletic.

“She can turn a single into a double easily,” Regnier said. “And she’s smart on the bases, although I got her thrown out once already trying to have her go from first to third.

“I’ll do that with her nine times out of 10 because she’s going in hard and she’s gonna make it interesting.”

Just as interesting could be Kersting’s first year at Iowa, where she will become a teammate of Oswego’s Kiyah Chavez, a Southwest Prairie Conference rival and the 2024 Beacon-News/Courier-News Softball Player of the Year.

Like Kersting, Chavez can also play multiple positions.

“For me, I just want to play with the best people,” Kersting said. “Kiyah is an amazing athlete. She’s a dawg. I mean, wrestling and taking second in state this year? That’s crazy.

“She’s a super-good athlete. I want to play with the best athletes. It just makes you better, right?”

Kersting’s first college visit was to Iowa after the Hawkeyes’ staff saw her play in a fall tournament, and it wasn’t a hard sell, either.

“I grew up a fan,” Kersting said of Iowa. “You know when you know.”