NILES — Before his sophomore year of high school, Cameron Ondresky had never been a catcher.

When he first graced the baseball field in high school, he always played shortstop. Before that, he was always in the infield. As a freshman on JV, Ondresky hopped around from shortstop to third base.

As he entered his sophomore year of baseball, the senior catcher on the Brandywine varsity baseball team had graduated.

David Sidebender, the team’s head coach, and Gary Kohler, the assistant coach, encouraged Ondresky to start baseball workouts in the early fall.

“Coach said, ‘If you want to be on varsity, you are going to have become a catcher,’” Ondresky said. “I was nervous, but at that age, I had just turned 15 years old. Wanting to be on varsity, that’s like all that matters at that time.”

Ondrensky spent the off-season learning how to let the ball hit him without reacting to it.

He spent practices with his hands behind his back in front of the pitcher’s mound, with a baseball bat and a bucket of balls just waiting to hit him.

“If it goes in the dirt, you let them hit you, or if they are straight, you still just let them hit you,” Ondresky said of a catcher’s mindset. “You really struggle with that if you’ve never caught before, because naturally, you want to catch the ball.”

The sophomore who had never caught a game until that fall shortly turned into a senior who earned first-team All-State in 2008. In his senior year, the Bobcats made it to the Division 3 State semifinals.

“My baseball team my senior year really felt like a family,” Ondresky said. “We were lucky enough to not only have that bond and connection but also to be pretty good. That’s always an advantage when you are winning, and you have a chance to go travel to districts and regionals and the final four.”

Many of his teammates had similar starts in baseball at Fireman’s Park, using the pitching machine at 7-years-old.

As Ondresky grew more serious about his future in baseball, he learned the importance of academic success and worked to improve his studies during his junior year, when recruiting grew more serious.

Ondresky went on to play one season at Lake Michigan College and continued playing on two travel ball teams.

During the summer, he started a job to help with gas and traveling. This eventually morphed into his future career.

“As fun as it [baseball] was, I knew what the end held for me, and thought I would pursue the career in front of me,” Ondresky said of his decision to not return to LMC baseball after the summer. “I don’t regret it.”

His introduction to funeral services began with just washing cars and mowing lawns at area funeral homes. As Ondresky helped with various projects, he became interested in the different ways families chose to celebrate somebody’s life.

“I got the chance to visit with families and actually coordinate those events and get to be that extra family member and person to lean on for the families you are helping,” Ondresky said. “It is very rewarding and a really unique opportunity that you can find in a career to be able to basically impact a community and be on a personal level with so many people.”

Ondresky has worked in funeral services for 11 years now and joined Starks Family Funeral Homes three years ago. Currently, he works as a funeral director and manages a Buchanan location for Swem Chapel, while balancing time spent with his wife, Ashley, and his daughter, Elliot.

Overall, Ondresky credits sports as a huge part of his development.

“Cherish the moments. They go by really fast,” Ondresky said. “I can still get back together with the people I played baseball with. We often reflect on those time, and it can be some of the greatest moments of your life.”