Abilene Christian University Men's Baseball

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.  

Casey Demko enters his third season as an assistant baseball coach in the 2025 season. Demko came to ACU after serving as an assistant coach at Quincy University for two seasons. Demko’s primary duties include infield coaching, assisting offensive development and overseeing team defense. In the 2023 season, his first season as an assistant for the Wildcats, the program finished the season as the 12th ranked defense in the country. The team also finished with the highest fielding percentage in program history in the 2023 season. Before his time at ACU, Demko was an assistant coach at Quincy University for the 2020-2022 seasons. During his time in Quincy, Illinois, Demko led the nationally ranked Quincy defense to their highest fielding percentage and most double plays turned in program history. Demko also served as an assistant for the Front Royal Cardinals in the summer of 2021. Preceding his coaching career, Demko saw a long, successful playing career as an infielder at the collegiate level. Demko started his collegiate career in 2015 at Ohio State. He played in Columbus until 2017. Then, Demko spent 2017-2018 at Sinclair Community College and finished his playing career at Coker University from 2018-2020.  Demko currently holds a bachelor of arts in interdisciplinary studies from Coker University and a masters of science in educational leadership from Quincy University.  The Dayton, Ohio, native’s family includes his father, Rich, who played collegiate baseball at Kent State, his mother, Stephanie, and his brother, Christian, who also played collegiate baseball at Marietta College, earning two national championships during his playing career. 

Matthew Frappier begins his second season at Abilene Christian as the baseball program’s director of operations after holding the same position at California Baptist for one season. Frappier duties at ACU include overseeing and coordinating various operations, including the program’s camps, social media, team outings, equipment, travel and all other game day operations.  During his tenure at California Baptist, the Lancers finished eighth in the Western Athletic Conference standings and made it to the second round of the WAC tournament. Frappier helped develop Spencer Bengard, who entered the MLB draft and was selected by the Minnesota Twins, and Liam Rocha, the 2023 WAC Pitcher of the Year and went on to sign as an undrafted free agent to the Twins. Before his time at CBU, Frappier previously served as the Director of Operations at Oklahoma Christian, his alma mater. Frappier also played as a pitcher at Oklahoma Christian from 2016 to 2020 before shoulder surgery and the COVID-19 pandemic ended his career. He went on to serve as a graduate assistant at Oklahoma Christian in 2021 and then Director of Baseball Operations in 2022.  The Coppell native also earned an undergraduate degree in sports management and an masters of business administration in leadership and organizational design from Oklahoma Christian.  Matthew’s family includes his wife, Ivy Frappier. 

Casey Popham joined the ACU Baseball team in August 2025, bringing a wide range of coaching, player development, and data analysis experience to the Wildcats’ staff. Before arriving at ACU, Popham worked as a pitching coach at several high-level private facilities across the country, training athletes from middle school through the professional ranks. In the summer of 2023, he served at PRP Baseball in Indianapolis, where he worked with pitchers nationwide while also helping create systems for pitch design and workload management. During the 2024 MLB season, Popham served as a Data Analyst for Inside Edge, where his work supported multiple MLB organizations with advanced scouting and was also utilized by MLB Network and ESPN. From Fall 2024 through Spring 2025, he transitioned into a Strength and Performance Coach role at Xtreme Strength and Sport Performance in Dubuque, Iowa, while completing his degree. Shortly after graduation, he joined Cressey Sports Performance in West Palm Beach, Florida, where he coached pitchers from across the country and provided data-driven insights to aid in their development. Along with his coaching, Popham is the creator of the Command Trainer Application, a tool designed to measure and improve pitching command daily. As a player, Popham competed collegiately at multiple programs, beginning at a junior college in Pasadena, California, before finishing his career at the University of Dubuque in Iowa. His playing background continues to shape his coaching philosophy, giving him a firsthand understanding of the player’s perspective and fueling his passion for athlete development. Academically, Popham graduated Summa Cum Laude from the University of Dubuque with a degree in Sport Marketing and Management. He was inducted into the Alpha Chi National Honor Society (top 10% of upper-level students nationwide) and the National Society of Leadership and Success, and he earned the Sport Marketing and Management Industry Engagement Award for his commitment to professional development beyond the classroom. As a player, he was also honored with induction into the La Salle High School (Pasadena, CA) Hall of Fame. He is in the Hall of Fame for his on-field accomplishments. Popham holds an Associate’s Degree from Green River College (Auburn, Wash.) and a Bachelor’s Degree in Sport Marketing and Management from the University of Dubuque. Additionally, he is certified in data analysis using R, Inferential Statistics, and linear regression modeling through Duke University, and he is currently working toward achieving bilingual proficiency in Spanish.