Baseball: Yorkville senior Kameron Yearsley is the Record Newspapers Player of the Year

Kameron Yearsley was always the smallest player on his baseball team growing up.

All of 5-foot-2 and 115 pounds as late as seventh grade, the Yorkville senior was a left-handed slap hitter with a long swing.

It’s an origin story hard to fathom when reviewing Yearsley’s body of work as a varsity baseball player.

He matched a junior year most could only dream about with an equally impressive encore senior season. Growing to 5-foot-10 and 208 pounds with a compact frame the cross between a tank and a fire hydrant, Yearsley emerged as one of the most dangerous hitters around with lethal opposite-field power.

In 73 varsity games, Yearsley drove in 101 runs.

“It really is kind of crazy, hard to contextualize something like that,” Yorkville coach Tom Cerven said. “You don’t see one season like that, let alone two seasons like that.”

Hitting third behind powerful right-handed hitter Nate Harris, Yearsley cleaned up to the tune of a .462 batting average, a .587 on-base percentage and .962 slugging, with 48 hits, of them nine doubles, two triples and 13 homers. He drove in 54 runs and scored 34.

Leading a Yorkville team beset by injuries to its pitching staff to 21 wins, Yearsley was named All-State by the Illinois High School Baseball Coaches Association and Prep Baseball Report. He is the Record Newspapers Player of the Year.

“It was crazy,” Yearsley said. “I was very surprised about what happened junior year. You keep putting it into perspective that it’s hard to do it again – not a lot of kids go back-to-back seasons with close to a .500 batting average. It’s crazy how everything happened.”

After a respectable cameo on varsity as a sophomore, Yearsley put up a monster junior year. He hit .526 with a 1.437 OPS, hit six homers and drove in 38 runs.

A kid with high expectations for himself, Yearsley told Cerven he aspired to surpass those numbers this spring.

Whether those goals weighed on him or not, Yearsley struggled for a three-week period during winter open gyms. He couldn’t hitting anything hard. Cerven pulled him aside and advised him to not try to live up to the last year, that it was not possible.

“And then he goes and does it,” Cerven said. “Once he realized that he didn’t have to be that guy things started to click.”

Opposing pitchers felt the weight of the damage Yearsley’s bat could do.

During a stretch in mid-April, Yearsley hit five homers and drove in 20 runs in one week, numbers that earned him the national Player of the Week by Prep Baseball Report. Against Minooka, Yearsley took a ball out at Yorkville’s new baseball field that landed in the parking lot beyond center field.

“Especially this year, he wasn’t catching anybody by surprise; people knew what he did last year,” Cerven said. “One of the things he did a good job is he kind of lived in the moment. Where at times last year it seemed like things would speed up for him, this year he seemed calm and collected. He did a good job of staying within his capabilities.”

Very short and small when he was younger, Yearsley found success when he learned to shorten his swing and hit the ball with authority.

Yearsley possesses a body type that seems suited for football, and he did play freshman year. He was the little wide receiver that ran around the field, and never liked to get hit.

“When I played football I loved it, but I thought it was go time for baseball so I gave it up,” Yearsley said.

He rediscovered his stroke after a tough winter by working harder, working with multiple hitting coaches and hitting with his older brother, Cole, a standout in his own right at Yorkville and 2023 JUCO All-American at Southeastern.

Kameron doesn’t usually like being compared to Cole, but their similar swings are one trait he doesn’t mind the comparison to.

“My brother has always been a big help from the aspect that he knows what’s wrong with my swing, because his is the same. Both swings are very simple so if there is something wrong it’s an easy fix,” Yearsley said.

“Probably the most important thing is taking the ball the opposite way with power. He was really good with that and stayed with that. I learned that I can hit the ball as hard the opposite way as I can when I pull it. My goal this year was hit balls hard wherever they were pitched.”

Always a strong kid, built like a linebacker, what has stood out about Yearsley to Cerven is his personality. He loves the game, and is always looking to get better. He’s always looking for critiques in terms of how he can be better.

It’s served him well, as have Yearsley’s physical gifts.

In Yorkville’s first game this spring on its new varsity baseball field, Yearsley showcased his tremendous raw power the other way with a double to the left-center field gap, and later a homer over the left field fence.

“At the core, it’s just his bat-to-ball skill,” Cerven said. “Doesn’t matter where the pitch is – high low in out – he has tremendous bat-to-ball skills. Couple that with raw power and any time a ball that he puts in play has a chance to go out, especially with air underneath it. It’s a pretty rare skill set – a lot of power, but not a lot of swing and miss. His ability to put the bat to ball is unreal. Part of that is talent, and then there is the drive and the work ethic he has. It’s not something that just happens.

“He had a great mentor to live up to in his brother Cole, a lot of that. It’s driven Kam to be the best player he can be.”

Yearsley has dreamed about both brothers being drafted, and he’d like to be on the same field as Cole someday. Kam will be attending John A. Logan College, a community college in Cartersville. Cole is currently in the NCAA transfer portal.

“I feel like that would be just the icing on the cake, the possibility of me meeting my brother on the college field for one day,” Yearsley said. “Most likely it won’t happen, typically everybody is at a JUCO for two years, but I wish I could play with my brother sometime. That, or play against him, would be awesome.”