'Lake Boy magic': Mizzou's Kam Durnin draws MLB scouts' eyes with his clutch late-season play

In the first inning of what many people believed would be the final game of Mizzou’s baseball season, Kam Durnin battled to work a full-count walk.

The No. 16 seed Tigers, who had gone 6-24 in conference games, likely needed to make the most of early base-running opportunities. So, when Durnin got stuck sliding in the mud at Hoover Metropolitan Stadium in Alabama and was picked off, things immediately looked bleak.

What happened over the next nine innings in the first round of the SEC Tournament surprised the college baseball world. Durnin played a huge role in turning around a big game for the team he rooted for as a kid.

Growing up in Linn Creek, Durnin developed a personal style that aligns with his high school’s chippy “Lake Boy baseball” mindset. It’s conveyed on the field and via social media. The attitude translated well to Mizzou for Durnin.

With a population of fewer than 300 people, Linn Creek did not have the high-quality facilities and training staff that can improve young athletes’ prospects.

The defining characteristics of his development were his family’s competitive spirit and his drive to prove himself. That’s the attitude it takes to beat the odds in the Ozarks.

A ‘mouthful of Lake’

Bryce Durnin, Kam’s father, is the head coach of the Camdenton High baseball team where Kam played. Bryce preaches a message that inspires the style of baseball endemic to the area.

“We have the saying down here at the Lake,” Bryce said. “Not necessarily being a baseball town, (teams) come down here and they think they’ll run over us. So, we have the saying: ‘Everybody needs a mouthful of Lake every once in a while.’

“People think that they’re going to come down here, have a good time, spend some time at the Lake and then beat us in the game of baseball. Then, all of a sudden, they realized that we can play a little bit, and we hit them with a mouthful of Lake.”

Nobody exemplifies that tough mentality better than Kam Durnin. From the time he first stepped on a baseball field, Durnin has overcome stacked odds to establish himself as, perhaps, an MLB-caliber shortstop. He often took swings above a Camdenton gym, smacking balls into a drop-down net.

“I feel like it drove me further,” Durnin said. “I think it motivated me more. I loved being the underdog. I still do.”

Multisport star

Durnin and his brothers were multisport athletes. He played baseball, football, basketball and, briefly, ran cross country.

“Watching him play football ... , kid did everything,” Bryce Durnin said.

Durnin was a quarterback and receiver as well as a special-teams player. He was a kicker and returned punts and kickoffs for the Lakers. In a game against Lebanon in his senior year, Durnin collected 178 scrimmage yards and was unstoppable taking snaps from a wildcat formation.

He was all-state as a receiver and kicker in his final year, but baseball was always the clear choice.

“Before I could even sit up by myself, I was so young that he would hold me up with his feet and then throw a ball off my chest, and it would roll back to him,” Durnin said of his father. “He would just do that over and over again. So it’s almost like I was born into being able to play baseball.”

During his senior season, Durnin batted second in the Lakers’ lineup, sandwiched between his younger brothers, Karson and Kade. The Durnin boys stood apart in the talent department from the jump. All three started four years for varsity.

It was during his time as a Laker that Bryce developed the prove-them-wrong attitude that defined Kam’s growth as a player and person.

“The kid has great habits, he’s got great routines, and he owns his downtime.” Bryce Durnin said. “To me, that’s what separates him. Whatever he lacks physically or whatever he lacks because he’s not gifted in that area, he’s going to make up for it. He’s going to get his eight hours of sleep. He’s going to eat better than you. He’s going to work harder than you in the weight room. He’s never going to miss a day of hitting.”

Even in a highly accomplished, competitive family, Durnin stood out. He left Camdenton with the single-season and career school records in batting average, runs, walks, doubles and triples as well as the career hits record.

“If you put him next to somebody, he’ll beat you most of the time,” Bryce Durnin said. “When it comes mano-a-mano, I’ll put Kam Durnin in front of anybody. That’s just the way he’s wired. He may never run a sub-7 60 (-yard dash), but you put him next to somebody that runs a 6.5, I think he wins.”

Earning stripes

Despite the success, Durnin didn’t receive the attention he felt he deserved from college recruiters. Playing at a small, rural school, he received only three offers from Division I baseball programs. The No. 9 shortstop in the state of Missouri at the time of his graduation, Durnin committed to play at Wichita State.

During his two years in Wichita, Durnin battled injuries to put up decent stats, but his potential was largely untapped. With a .775 OPS and .258 average, Durnin was unsatisfied with his production and opted to enter the transfer portal.

Over the summer, Durnin made the decision to play in the Appalachian League, where MLB legends such as Jim Thome, Nolan Ryan and Cal Ripken Jr. have spent summers.

After departing WSU, Durnin returned home briefly to reestablish his swing with his family’s input.

“I sat down with my dad, and we had 10 days to just go to work and reset and find a swing that would work for me. So we hit together every single day up until I left for the league,” Durnin recalled.

As a member of the Kingsport Axmen, Kam had a breakout summer. The revamped swing led to the results Durnin had been seeking. He tied the all-time single-season mark for Appalachian League batting average at .407 and established a single-summer record with 56 RBI.

In a league that has fostered superstars such as Darryl Strawberry, Andruw Jones, Yadier Molina, David Wright and Eddie Murray, Durnin’s numbers from last summer stand out. He was named the Appalachian League Player of the Year in August of that summer.

In late June of 2025, Durnin declared his intent to transfer to Mizzou for his third collegiate season. Growing up, Durnin and his brothers often made the trip from the Lake area to Columbia for youth tournaments. In high school, the Lakers played in the Central Missouri Activities Conference with three Columbia schools.

“I spent many hours driving up and back to Columbia,” Durnin said. “That was kind of our home base for where we got our work in.”

Years later, the Durnin family packed into the stands along with many other families from the Lake area to support the Tigers shortstop.

“My family pretty much came to every single home game this year and a good chunk of the away games, and so that was super special,” Durnin said. “But it was also special to get a bunch of people from my high school in my area, the Lake area, to come up to games, just for no other reason than just to support me. And so that was super special to just feel love from your hometown and family as well.”

Spark-plug season

Durnin had a stellar junior season at Mizzou, leading the team with a 1.007 OPS and .329 batting average. He showed off his power, collecting nine doubles and nine homers, and showed his value on the bases, swiping a team-high 11 bags.

Where Durnin really made his mark, however, was in that SEC Tournament in Hoover, Alabama. Before heading to the field that day, Durnin’s morning messages included a text from his dad that read, ‘‘Time for (a) Little Lake Boy magic.”

“There’s some stadiums I feel like you can walk into and know you’re gonna have a good week,” Durnin said. “I walked down onto the field, and I just knew I was gonna have a good week. That place was beautiful. Has a natural surface. I don’t know. I love that place, and I love that area and especially that field.

“So I had good vibes from it immediately when I got there, but really I’d been feeling good the past couple weeks. For me, it was just about continuing that and finding ways to impact the game.”

Mizzou was forced to play Ole Miss in the first game of the tournament early in the morning, leaving the field still damp. Durnin didn’t let being tagged out in the mud get the best of him.

In his second plate appearance, he cranked a two-run home run to left-center that tied the game.

He drew a walk and stole a base in his next trip to the plate and scored the go-ahead run on a single by Mateo Serna.

He walked a third time before ripping a single in the eighth. He scored all the way from first on a hit-and-run single to give the 16th-seeded Tigers the lead once again. They went on to win 10-8, advancing in shocking fashion.

In the second game, Durnin collected another pair of hits, including a no-doubt homer to dead center field that got the scoring started in the top of the first. Despite his efforts, the team lost in blowout fashion and was eliminated from the tournament.

Even though the loss ended another rough season for the Tigers, the development of stars such as Durnin and teammate Josh McDevitt, who joined Kam at the MLB Draft Combine in June, was a bright spot for the program. Durnin’s stock among MLB teams appeared to be on the rise. Some mock drafts have suggested Durnin could be taken within the first five rounds.

The MLB Draft begins Saturday in Philadelphia with the first four rounds.

“He definitely became more of a vocal leader,” McDevitt said of Durnin. “He would speak up if something was important to him, but he would always go about things the right way. He knew he was somebody that you should listen to. He wasn’t going to raise his voice just to hear himself talk. It was always good stuff.

“He still carried the lead by example kind of attitude throughout the whole year, but definitely became more comfortable leading in other ways as well.”

Durnin and McDevitt, a right-handed pitcher, were two of 335 draft prospects invited to participate in the combine. They were also roommates during their time at Mizzou.

“Nobody that knows him is surprised by the success that he’s had over the last year,” McDevitt said. “We could all see this kind of year coming. We knew what we were getting with him.”

As the draft approaches, the Durnin family will be watching to see where Kam gets taken. Many MLB teams will certainly take a long look at the sure-handed shortstop coming off a clutch performance in the postseason.

Wherever Durnin ends up playing next, he will threaten a mouthful of Lake to anybody who doubts he can play.