Wheaton North senior shortstop Reagan Crosthwaite is the 2025 Suburban Life Softball Player of the Year

Allie Ravanesi is asked the question all the time about Reagan Crosthwaite.

How does she hit so many home runs?

So tall and thin, Crosthwaite does not quite strike the pose of a power bat. At times it looks like the Wheaton North senior shortstop barely swings – and yet the ball flies off her bat.

“She just works at it,” said Ravanesi, Wheaton North’s softball coach. “She has the confidence in herself to do what she does.”

What Crosthwaite has done over the past two years is rewrite much of the Wheaton North record book. All while leading the Falcons to unprecedented heights.

Crosthwaite set Wheaton North records for single-season home runs (18 her junior year) and career (47) and also established program benchmarks for single-season RBIs (52 her junior year) and career RBIs (143).

A year after helping lead Wheaton North to its first conference and regional titles in 38 years, Crosthwaite and the Falcons reached their second straight sectional final.

Crosthwaite’s last career home run, a two-run shot in the fifth inning of a sectional final against Oswego, had Wheaton North nine outs away from its first sectional title.

The Falcons wound up losing to the eventual Class 4A state champs, but it was a season Crosthwaite could look back on with much fondness.

“This year it was just kind of our last go-around,” Crosthwaite said. “Our team had a lot of seniors. We knew it would come to an end. We laid it all out there on the field.”

Indeed, Crosthwaite batted .424 with a .531 on-base percentage and .980 slugging percentage with 42 hits – 15 of them homers and 10 of them doubles – 42 RBIs and 38 runs scored.

A Class 4A All-State first-team pick by the Illinois Coaches Association, Crosthwaite is the 2025 Suburban Life Softball Player of the Year.

Ravanesi, who took over the Wheaton North program four years ago, had Crosthwaite come in with her as a freshman.

She’s seen the dedication that the quiet, unassuming girl puts into her work in practice and on her own.

“She is like a quiet killer, a silent killer. She probably works as hard as anybody that I have ever coached outside of practice,” Ravanesi said. “She is so dedicated. That is something you don’t see out on the softball field but everybody knows. Nobody has to tell her to put in the extra work. They just know that she does it. That feeds off on other girls.”

Crosthwaite works with her dad every day, doing tee work, front toss, taking infield grounders and shagging fly balls.

Whatever her Wheaton North team wouldn’t do in practice, Crosthwaite worked at on her own to make sure she got both sides done every day.

She uses any park that’s available to get the work in. During the winter she’s in her garage or basement perfecting her craft.

“It started when I was a lot younger, actually,” Crosthwaite said. “I knew I wanted to get a lot better at softball. In order to do that, I had to practice to the point where I am separating myself from what most people are doing. I started to see a lot better results. Getting good quality reps makes me more confident in games.”

Crosthwaite would not say that she’s always been a power hitter. That happened over time.

“I was always just an OK hitter. Just some changes to my swing technique helped me take off. It was really just my swing plane,” she said. “Some adjustments needed to be made. Probably freshman and sophomore year it happened, just me and my dad working and then obviously the strength training helped a lot.”

Well-rounded outside the lines, Crosthwaite is an Illinois State Scholar and National Merit Scholar. She holds a Seal of Biliteracy and a National Speech and Debate Association Degree of Merit.

She’ll be attending Brown University to study biochemistry on the pre-med track and play softball.

“Brown is really the perfect fit for me,” Crosthwaite said. “It has really good programs academically and really competitive softball. That is where I wanted to be and I’m glad that it worked out.”