Blaze Lambert enters his seventh year in the spring of 2025 and first year as the Associate Head Coach for Abilene Christian Baseball. Following four years as an area scout for the Cleveland Indians, Lambert returned to the collegiate ranks in August 2018, coaching the catchers and assisting with the offense.
Over the past four seasons (post-covid), Lambert's efforts have propelled ACU baseball to new heights. The Wildcats have amassed 134 wins, averaging 34 victories per season (2021-24). This means the Wildcats have become one of just three non-Power 5 programs in Texas to achieve 30+ wins each season in the last four years. Lambert's keen eye as recruiting coordinator finds talent and understanding of what it takes to succeed at ACU have been instrumental in building competitive rosters that have not only won games but also produced professional athletes.
Lambert coached a Major League Baseball draft pick in Luis Treviño, who was named the Southland Conference Player of the Year, after a historic season in 2019. The ACU catcher was drafted in the 40th round by the Tampa Bay Rays after earning Collegiate Baseball Newspaper Second Team All-America, ABCA/Rawlings Second Team All-America, and NCBWA Third Team All-America honors. Treviño was named to the ABCA/Rawlings First Team Division I All-Midwest Region, and earned First Team All-Southland honors as well. Lambert also coached senior Dalon Farkas, who was named Second Team All-SLC as an outfielder, and made the All-Academic squad as well. Joining those two on the all-conference list were pitchers Brennan Lewis (honorable mention) and Spencer Chirpich (honorable mention).
The program made an all-time re-build come to life in the spring of 2021. It might just be the quickest turnaround in all of college baseball. It all came together in the spring of 2021 with the first-ever Southland Conference championship, a school-record 36 wins, and one of the great offenses in Wildcat history. ACU baseball arrived on the landscape of Division I college baseball this spring, and it plans to stay there awhile.
The strength of the 'Cats during the 2021 season was the offense, and combined with key moments on the mound, it all came together during a historic 11-game winning streak that catapulted ACU to the top of the Southland Conference standings. Then the thought turned from just making the conference tournament to maybe winning a league title. ACU won 17 of its last 21 games to close out the season, and when the season ended, ACU had the Southland Hitter of the Year (Colton Eager), the Southland Newcomer of the Year (Grayson Tatrow).
ACU went 2-2 at the Southland Conference Tournament, appearing in the post-season at the Division I level for the first time. The 'Cats beat Lamar and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi to advance to the semifinals before falling to Sam Houston to end their season. It was a season that included seven all-conference players as well, including three on the first team (Mitchell Dickson, Colton Eager, Bash Randle), one on the second team (Grayson Tatrow), and two on the third team (Tommy Cruz, Brett Hammit). Hunter Gieser and Brett Hammit were each named to the All-Tournament Team as well. Dickson and Eager earned all-academic first team honors too, and Gieser and Miller Ladusau were named to the second team all-academic.
ACU set plenty of records in 2021, including 36 wins, 25 Southland wins, and 11-game winning streak, a 3.45 fall GPA , a 3.36 cumulative GPA, 473 strikeouts, seven all-conference players, and a 104 final RPI.
Year four featured a new direction, as ACU headed into a new era as a member of the Western Athletic Conference. The Wildcats finished with 30 wins yet again, going 30-29 including 14-16 in the WAC play. ACU finished fourth in the Southwest Division of the conference, and after falling to top-seed and nationally-ranked Grand Canyon in the first round of the tournament, the team rattled off four wins in three days to advance to the WAC Championship Game. It was the first appearance for the program in a title game at the Division I level. ACU beat GCU twice in that stretch, including 6-5 in a walk-off thriller, and 15-8 the very next afternoon to advance to the championship. The Wildcats dropped a 7-1 game to NM State in the championship game.
ACU did the unthinkable in 2022, winning five games against Power 5 opponents, including a three-game sweep of Michigan State at home, as well as wins at TCU and at Texas Tech. More history was made with the latter two wins; ACU won its first-ever game against a ranked opponent on March 29 in Fort Worth, topping No. 12 TCU, 6-2. The 'Cats then did one better on May 3 in Lubbock, picking up its first-ever top-10 victory with an 8-5 win over No. 9 Texas Tech.
ACU broke 71 school records as a team or individually in 2022, most in the offensive category. Bash Randle finished as an all-conference performer, and was named to the all-defensive team at shortstop as well. The Wildcats set records for the season for slugging percentage (.484), games played (59), at-bats (2,074), doubles (124), hits (610), home runs (83), walks drawn (283), runs batted in (417), total bases (1,003), most times hit by pitch (92), and most stolen bases (80).
The game most remember is the 10-home run, 23-run performance against Marist on March 5. The 10 homers set a new record and the 23 runs is the second-most for the program.
Grayson Tatrow and Mitchell Dickson each set records for most runs scored in a single season (67 and 56, respectively), while Bash Randle had the highest stolen base percentage in a single season for ACU at .929. Tatrow's 67 runs scored, 17 homeruns hit, 47 walks drawn, and 66 runs batten in all set new records in 2022.
In the classroom, ACU has improved its team GPA every single year since McCarty arrived at ACU. The team put together a 3.41 cumulative team GPA during the 2021-22 academic year, improving from a 3.35 the year before. ACU had a 3.17 GPA in 2018-19, and improved to 3.21 in 2019-20.
Lambert joined the six-time American League champions in June 2014 and watched the team come within one victory of capturing the 2016 World Series against the Chicago Cubs. Cleveland again won the American League Central Division in 2017 and led its division in 2018 by 10 games over Minnesota at the time of his departure.
Lambert's college coaching experience dates back to 2008 with Angelo State as he pursued a master's degree in kinesiology (business administration focus). He was part of Kevin Brooks' coaching staff from 2008-09, during which the Rams' posted a 84-39 (.683) record and qualified for the 2009 NCAA DII South Central Region Tournament.
From there, Lambert volunteered for one season at Texas A&M Corpus Christi (2010) where he served as the catchers' coach and handled team camps, and the following season he was the recruiting coordinator and pitching coach for Dan Fitzgerald (now with Dallas Baptist) at Des Moines Area Community College.
Lambert later coached for one season (2013) at Ranger Community College and returned to the Southland Conference a second time in 2014 as an assistant coach at Nicholls. The Colonels turned in a 32-26 overall record that season and posted a 21-9 mark vs. league opponents.
A native of Ft. Worth, Lambert graduated from Brewer High School in 2003 and first played baseball at Eastfield Community College in Dallas for two seasons (2004-05) before transferring to Palm Beach Atlantic (Fla.) University, where he earned his bachelor's degree in physical education (exercise science concentration) in 2007.
Lambert and his wife, Amy, have four children, a son, Lake, a daughter, Steely Mae, another son, Stone and another daughter, Leddy.
