Kam Yearsley never believed he would have a season quite like his junior year at Yorkville.

What he’s doing this year is unbelievable.

A sophomore now at John A. Logan College in downstate Carterville, Yearsley is one home run away from tying the National Junior College Athletic Association record. Yearsley hit his 37th homer on Thursday.

“My junior year of high school, I thought I would not come close to it ever again and now I’m doing it on a bigger stage with more home runs,” Yearsley said. “It’s just an amazing feeling. The hours I put in are coming out.”

The lefty-hitting Yearsley, the 2024 Record Newspapers Player of the Year, is batting .509 with 52 total extra-base hits and 94 runs batted in. Incredibly, his 37 home runs have come in just 163 at-bats.

He broke the John A. Logan single-season home run record with his 24th on April 1 and smashed the program career home run record when he hit his 35th on April 17.

Yearsley has five regular season games left to get the national record.

“Crazy,” John A. Logan coach Kyle Surprenant said. “He is a great worker, a really good kid. It’s just a culmination of all the work that he has put in. Everything he hits is hard. I just talked to a scout and in his system he is in the 92nd percentile of hard-hit average of all of college baseball. That is just different.”

With a compact, powerful frame, Yearsley had a monster junior year at Yorkville, batting .526 with a 1.437 OPS, six homers and 38 RBIs. He followed that up by batting .462 with nine doubles, two triples, 13 homers and 34 RBIs as a senior.

Yearsley had just 37 at-bats as a freshman on a sophomore-heavy John A. Logan team last season. But he hardly put the year to waste.

“Last year was a very big learning experience,” Yearsley said. “The guys in front of me worked their butt off to be in that position. Knowing that is what pushed me more. I was in the weight room a lot, always after practice practicing, getting my extra swings in. The little stuff mattered and it’s finally my time to show it.”

Surprenant said Yearsley would have been just fine last year had he been thrown into the fire, and would have produced, likely double-digit home runs. But it took him time to adjust to the speed of the game, which Yearsley clearly has.

“He has just made small adjustments with his bat path, cleaned it up with his approach where now he is in a better position to hit,” Surprenant said. “The consistency has gone off the charts, his consistent hard contact. You throw in his natural skill set – the bat to ball skill is through the roof. He is hitting balls hard that are out of the zone, quality pitcher pitches that he’s able to make guys pay for."

Yearsley provided a harbinger of things to come the first weekend. He hit two homers the first game, and four over the first three games the last weekend of January in Florida.

“The first week I realized that it is there,” Yearsley said. “Seeing how big of a first week I had against Top 25 competition gave me a huge confidence booster.”

Yearsley teased his power potential back to his days at Yorkville. Throwing himself into the weight room lifting three times a week has helped him use his body and swing better to generate power.

“I would say I have developed more power and I’m striking out less (24 this year). I struck out in high school more than I wanted to,” Yearsley said. “Now I have more homers than strikeouts and walks than strikeouts. Those are the qualities I like to see, especially the walks.”

As the homers have piled up and the spotlight of the record has intensified, Surprenant said it hasn’t affected Yearsley.

Surprenant is in awe of the picturesque moon shots Yearsley has put on the roof of a new indoor facility beyond the 20-foot tall fence in right field at John A. Logan, or the missiles on a line that barely get 18 feet off the ground.

“He is hitting stuff from his nose to his toes,” Surprenant said. “He is hitting fastballs, breaking balls. He is putting his body in such a good position and launches from there. Gosh dang it’s fun to watch.”

There has been a drumbeat for Yearsley to be considered for the Golden Spikes award, given to the nation’s top amateur baseball player. Only twice in the award’s 48-year history has a JUCO player won it, most recently Bryce Harper in 2010.

“The likelihood of him receiving it is slim,” Surprenant said, “but just to be in the conversation is unbelievable.”

The season Yearsley has had has also put him in the conversation to be selected in this summer’s MLB Draft. Yearsley right now has a contract to play this summer in the Cape Cod League, a rarity for JUCO players. He’s committed to play next collegiately at Missouri State.

“I try not to think about the draft too much but it’s hard not to,” Yearsley said. “The year I am having, like in high school, I’m trying not to get too big. Staying humble and letting God take his role.”