Staff report

LYNCHBURG, Va. — Liberty University center fielder Kane Kepley has put together a terrific sophomore season in Conference USA that hasn’t gone unnoticed.

Kepley was one of the players featured in a recent Baseball America profile of college players whose stock is rapidly rising.

Kepley, described as a “5-foot-8 firecracker” by Baseball America was the center fielder and lead-off man for the South Rowan team that won the 2022 3A state championship.

He had a strong freshman season at Liberty, quickly moving into the starting lineup and followed that season with an all-star summer (.339, 26 steals, 14 extra-base hits) for the High Point/Thomasville team in the Coastal Plain League, a strong college wood bat league that is normally dominated by pitchers.

As a sophomore, Kepley has been one of the best players in Conference USA. He’s second in the league in on-base percentage (.475), sixth in batting average (.344), tied for fifth in runs (44), tied for 12th in hits (55), second in walks (33) and third in steals (15-for-17).

His 33 walks while striking out only 18 times is a stat that really stands out.

While he doesn’t have the height of the prototypical prospect, he has exceptional bat speed as well as exceptional contact skills.

He also has excellent running speed and is rated as a terrific base runner as well as a speedy one. His arm is not exceptional, but it’s good and he has great defensive instincts in center field.

He projects as a potential center fielder or left fielder in the major leagues.

Kepley will be draft eligible in 2025. At this point, he’s rated as a player who could be picked as high as the third round.

Baseball American compared him to Tommy Hawke, the former Wake Forest player who was a sixth-round pick in 2023 by the Cleveland Guardians.