Baseball
Favorite athlete: Ryan Howard
Favorite team: Phillies
Favorite memory competing in sports: Dogpiling after the 2025 District One Championship
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: Throwing my bat (on a swing) after coming back from wrist injury
Music on playlist: All types of music
Future plans: Elizabethtown College for 4 years for Exercise Science degree then somewhere to pursue a Physical Therapy doctorate
Words to live by: “Work while no one’s watching so you succeed when everyone’s watching.”
One goal before turning 30: Have a family of my own and make a good living
One thing people don’t know about me: I’m a novice hacky sacker.
By Mary Jane Souder
Kyle Bonner remembers it well.
Sophomore year when the 2026 North Penn grad was thrust into the unexpected role of starting center fielder after senior Henry Wenzel was sidelined with an injury.
“Our first (district) playoff game was at home against Ridley,” Bonner said. “I remember going out to center field, and I couldn’t hear anything except my
heart totally going crazy, and it was not a fun experience.”
Not fun, perhaps, but a valuable lesson was learned.
“You have to be aware, you have to be present, you have to know to take a step back and reset, but at that moment, it was really hard, honestly,” said Bonner. “At that point, I really didn’t know how to handle it – like there was nothing I could do, and I would just have to deal with it.
“But moving on to summer ball, I remember being like, ‘This is the game you’ve always enjoyed,’ just reminding myself to forget about the pressure. Still, that is something that is hard for me to get over, but it has gotten better.”
To this day, it remains something of a mental battle, but Bonner’s baseball story had a positive outcome. He was recruited by several schools and opted to attend and play baseball at Elizabethtown College.
For Bonner, playing collegiate baseball is the culmination of a goal he’s had since he was 
a youngster.
“It was definitely always baseball – I’ve been swinging a baseball bat since I was two or three,” said Bonner, who also played some soccer and basketball. “Once I got to 12, I was like – ‘This is what I want to do.’”
It wasn’t always smooth sailing, but Bonner stayed the course.
“This is a kid that over the course of his time in the North Penn High School program was on the field, in the lineup, on the bench – he was leadoff hitter, starting center fielder, pinch runner, courtesy runner and pinch hitter,” North Penn coach Kevin Manero said. “He did it all over the course of his time and would be the first one to admit that when he was in or out of the lineup there was a reason for it. And he never complained about anything.”
A bumpy high school journey
Bonner’s high school journey began with a successful year on the junior varsity as a freshman – he started every game and hit leadoff.
As a sophomore, Bonner began fall ball playing for the varsity but didn’t see significant playing time the following spring until the aforementioned injury to Wenzel.
“(Coach Kevin) Manero told me to stay after practice, and as we walked back in, he said, ‘We’re going to put you in center field. We think your fundamentals are there,’” Bonner recalled. “I kind of got tossed in the fire there a little bit, but looking back it was an absolutely amazing experience, but in the moment, I really struggled totally.”
The Knights went on to make a district run and earned a spot in states, an experience he wouldn’t have wanted to miss, but the self-doubt remained.
Junior year was something of a rerun of sophomore year.
“Here is a chance – go make something of it, and I never really fully stepped into being confident and settled in to where I would be playing,” Bonner said. “Again, that was hard because I was getting the chances and I couldn’t make the most of it. I would pinch hit every now and then and did some pinch running.”
In the Knights’ District 1 6A semifinal game against Coatesville, Bonner – in a pinch hit appearance –
delivered a clutch two-strike sacrifice bunt in the top of the seventh when the Knights rallied for a 4-2 win. The Knights went on to capture the district title, and in their next game – the PIAA 6A State Tournament opener – Bonner found himself in the starting lineup but once again was his own worst enemy.
“That was the first game I started all year,” he said. “I remember that feeling again of being out of my comfort zone.
“But just being able to watch and be part of that team – even if it wasn’t on the field – was an incredible experience. Such a small percentage of people get to be part of that. I was as heartbroken as anyone else (when we lost), and I never got to play with any of those guys again.”
A successful American Legion season that summer with Nor-Gwyn came to a halt when he suffered a hyper-extended wrist.
With that injury behind him, Bonner entered fall ball with decidedly high expectations.
“Going into the fall of my senior year, I’m like ‘I’m a senior, I’ve been through the wringer the past three years, and I am confident, I am ready to go,’ and I started off super hot in the fall, finally playing really well,” he said. “I was finally feeling comfortable with where I was at.”
Another setback
Midway through the fall season, the injury bug struck again.
“I took a pitch right off the funny bone,” he said. “I go back in the dugout and grab my glove, and I’m like, ‘I can’t move my arm, but it’ll go away when I get out there.’ But it was stuck in a 90-degree bend.
“It was the last inning, so let me just power through this, just hoping nothing comes my way in center field, and, of course, the ball comes to me in center field. I remember having to just stoop over with my upper body to pick it up because I couldn’t extend my arm to get it. The game ends, and luckily, we win.”
The injury turned out to be a broken humerus bone that kept his arm in a sling for the better part of the winter and also required physical therapy.
“By the time I was back, we were all done with the fall season and we were doing our morning lifting,” he said. “I’m going to every lift with my arm in a sling. I remember getting cleared to run at some point before Christmas.
“That was the greatest thing – I can finally be part of normalcy with the rest of the team.”
Underscoring Bonner’s commitment was the fact that – despite his injury – he had perfect attendance at morning lifts for four straight years,
“Those are all my guys – I wouldn’t have wanted to miss a day with them,” he said.
Bonner was feeling good in the preseason of his final high school season and was starting in right field, but when the Suburban One League games began, the tide turned.
“I remember first game – I’m at a place where I feel confident enough to play, and I’m not nervous like I was a year ago, but for some reason I just froze in the moment,” he said.
By the third game of the team’s first three-game series, Bonner had lost his starting position.
“I like to understand how the coaching part works, so I get why the move is coming – it makes sense to me,” he said. “I would realistically probably do the same thing.”
If there was a moment that summed up Bonner’s season, it came in the seventh inning of the third game of a pivotal three-game series against Souderton – one day after delivering a successful pinch hit sacrifice bunt.
“We were down one or two runs, and I’m going up – it’s a big crowd, a great environment on their new field,” he said. “I’m doing everything to stay out of my head because that’s always been an issue. I was calm, I was confident. I wasn’t thinking about anything but hitting this ball.
“I remember swinging through a fastball. It was an eight or nine-pitch at-bat with a lot of foul tips. I am feeling good – this is where I should be. On a 3-2 count, he threw a low and borderline fastball. I froze, and I got rung up. I should have swung at it. End of story.”
The season ended with the Knights on the outside looking in when playoff time rolled around.
“You don’t want it to end – I don’t know what to do without baseball after school every day,” he said. “That was hard.”
Off the diamond
An excellent student, Bonner stepped into a new role junior year as a sportswriter for the school newspaper, The Knight Crier, at the suggestion of his English teacher, who also happened to be his baseball coach.
“I had an assignment for English class, and one of the options was to interview someone about something,” he said. “I was like, ‘Sure, this seems like an easy way to get a good grade. So, I talked to Manero, and I had to interview him about a book we read.
“After I was done, he said, ‘You know – you’re a pretty good interviewer. Have you ever thought about writing for the school newspaper?’ I was like, ‘Dude, I didn’t even know we had a school newspaper.’ I checked it out, and I did a total dive into all of this.
“I appreciate seeing local stuff being covered like it’s a big deal because it kind of is. I put it in my course selections for senior year, and I am just loving writing about sports. I would go to a basketball game, take the photos and interview the guys. I’d write it that night and finish it at 1 a.m.”
He became known as the ‘guy who writes about sports,’ a role he reveled in and was – according to the newspaper’s advisor – very good at it.
“I knew he was a smart, intelligent student, but he started to take on a bigger role,” Manero said. “The thing he did best – he would start to do things without asking.
“He started out as a good writer, and I think he graduated as an excellent writer. His ability to write a lede in a sports story, his ability to tell the story of a game – that’s not something that really comes easy.
“Having a voice and also being able to report it is difficult – it’s a tough combination to master, and by the time he graduated, he managed to master that perfect combination. If I would have read one of his articles and not know who wrote it, you never would have convinced me that it was a student writer. This kid’s a pro.”
The next step
Bonner played American Legion baseball with his Nor-Gwyn team this summer and batted .430, a good sendoff to begin the next chapter at Elizabethtown, where both his father and uncle played baseball and his mother also went to E-town.
Bonner also had offers from Misericordia, Ursinus, DeSales and Scranton.
“I didn’t want to be this kid that went to Elizabethtown because his whole family went there. I liked all those places,” he said. “But it ended up being a great fit because of their exercise science program, and I’m going to be doing pre-physical therapy, which is what I’d like to do in the long run. Their baseball team has been great and I love the campus. It just felt right to me when I went there.
“It was redeeming to think – here are five colleges that are pretty good, and they want me. I must be good enough if they want me. Obviously, people thought more of me than I did of myself.”
When his playing days are over, Bonner sees coaching baseball in his future, an opportunity to teach his players the lessons he’s learned along the way.
“Kyle is a true baseball player, and he will rise with the tide at the next level,” Manero said. “I have seen him do that since the days I watched him on the little league fields at Nor-Gwyn. But above all else, he is an elite human being. Teaching and coaching is a great lifestyle because of the Kyle Bonners of the world.
“When we took him out of the lineup, he knew why. What I find with a lot of players in this generation is that one of the best abilities they can have – and it becomes more and more of a rare trait – is accountability.
“He knows through his own self-assessment whether or not he’s playing to the level he has to. He never felt anything was owed to him. In each opportunity that he had that didn’t stick, he never forgot that. It didn’t mean he lost his hunger because he tried to fight his way back.
“Analytically, he understood everything we did – not just from the mind of a player but from the mind of somebody who is going to be an excellent coach himself someday, should he choose that path.”
Bonner has embarked on a new journey, but his final high school baseball memory is a good one. It came at the team’s delayed Senior Night game at Hostelley Field after the regular season was over.
“We got killed – it was like 12-2, but it was at Nor-Gwyn, and I was happy to be there,” he said. “I was having a great time. I know everyone in the stands, I know everyone on the field. It was a great way to end because I had a great time during the whole game – smiling.”