“It was very much a matter of trying to change the culture,” said Lambert, who at the time was the youngest high school baseball coach in New York State. “We were known primarily in the 1980s as just a basketball school. We were the doormat of the Northern conference. Then we came in and my goal, immediately, was to win the league in three years.”
The Saints did just that. After going 10-11 in his first season, Lambert led the Saints to the first of what would be three consecutive league titles just two years later. After that, “it just snowballed.”
Twenty-six years after taking over as head coach, Lambert has catapulted the Saints to a Class B powerhouse that has established a winning tradition and won four Section II championships in the last six seasons.
With Monday’s 4-0 shutout victory over St. Johnsville, Lambert reached the milestone of 600 games coached. The Saint’s 15-0 win over Canajoharie, Wednesday, officially puts Lambert at 601. During that span, he has gone 434-167 (.722 winning percentage).
Reaching the high school landmark is just another accolade for Lambert, who is No. 5 all time in Section II wins.
“It’s [600] a number,” Lambert said. “I never hit a ball, never threw a pitch and never stole a base. It has been all the players. I’ve just been fortunate enough to be in the position where I can put everybody in the places where they’re supposed to go.”
The only active Section II coaches ahead of Lambert in wins are league rival Fort Plain’s Craig Phillips (681-204) and Queensbury’s Jay Marra (563-273). The Western Athletic Conference has seen many clashes between teams coached by Lambert and Phillips, who is the No. 1 all-time winningest coach in the section’s history and has been coaching Fort Plain for the past 37 years.
“Craig and I have had some tremendous battles over the years,” Lambert said.
The section recognized both schools in 2013 by inviting them to Rivalry Night, Friday, May 3 at Joseph L. Bruno Stadium. The other six schools attending the matchups of foes are all AA schools, making Fort Plain and Saratoga Catholic the only small schools invited.
It’s not the first time the two have been honored together.
In 2010, Lambert received the Diamond Sports Regional Coach of the Year award in Nashville, Tenn. That same year, Phillips was named the National Coach of the Year.
“That was a really big honor,” Lambert said. “Seeing all these great college coaches and everything else … receiving an award at that stage is pretty humbling.”
Lambert needs just three more wins to pass Lake George’s Scott Snyder (437-203) and 15 to pass Warrensburgh’s George Khoury (449-198).
Climbing to the No. 3 spot this season is by no means out of reach, as the Saints have won over 20 games eight times during Lambert’s tenure.
What makes the sectional wins more impressive is that the Saints have won four of their five Section II titles as members of Class B, despite being the size of a Class C school. On average, a graduating class size is between 25 and 30 kids.
A prime example of this can be seen in a framed photograph, on Lambert’s desk, of the seniors on his 2007 team. That graduating class had just nine boys. Seven of them played ball.
That season, the Saints won their first Section II Class B crown.
But the first and lone Section CC title, in 2000, might trigger some of Lambert’s fondest memories. That year, the Saints were 27-2 and finished runner up for the state title with players like Tim Stauffer, who set school records in season wins (13), batting average (.586) and consecutive innings without giving up a hit (19).
“I really feel as though, if we were able to get that done in that championship game, that might have been the most complete baseball team to come out of the area,” Lambert said. “We just went through everybody in sectionals.”
Over the course of 600 games, Lambert has been able to journey on what he calls “a great ride” of meeting talented coaches, players and people in general, who he says he “could never have imagined.”
When he was a 1984 graduate of Saratoga Catholic, he never thought he would one day turn a no-name program into a local powerhouse.
“I played baseball here and I played on some of the struggling football teams,” Lambert said. “I thoroughly enjoyed playing and I always wanted to bring a winner to the school. Winning that first championship was a goal of ours. I never imagined that 26 years later the program would be where it is now.”
The passion for coaching what he calls “the greatest game ever invented” hasn’t left him. Since his early days of coaching, Lambert has always enjoyed leading a team. With strong support from his parents, and later learning coaching techniques from personnel including Ron Ravena (Ballston Spa football), Murry O’Neill (Burnt Hills football) and Tom Rentz (Corinth and Hadley Luzerne baseball), he built a structure which has now accumulated into the definition of success.
Coaching 600 games is just a small dent in what he hopes will be a career that doubles that. If he had to put a number on how many more years he would like to coach—35.
“I love coaching baseball,” Lambert said. “I love being around the kids and meeting new challenges every year. I can not see myself ever giving it up. I just have a lot of energy and a lot of desire when it comes to coaching baseball.”
