FloSoftball 2017 High School Coach Of The Year: Mike Lambros

Jun 28, 2017 by FloSoftball Staff

Mike Lambros is arguably the greatest high school softball coach to ever coach in the Tar Heel state and is recognized as FloSoftball's 2017 High School Coach Of The Year.

Lambros, the winningest softball coach in North Carolina history with 898 wins as of the end of the 2017 season and has had a career coaching the sport at North Davidson since 1979. He took the program from slow-pitch to fast-pitch in 1996.

In addition to career success and longevity, Lambros guided a team to the North Carolina Class 4A state title that it wasn't expected to win. In the best-of-three state final, the Black Knights faced a team from Cape Fear that was 28-1 and earlier in the season was as high as No. 6 in the FAB 50 national rankings. Freshman Regan Spencer first pitched a shutout as North Davidson won the first game 2-0 and then in the second game the girls had to come back after Cape Fear had tied the score 2-2 with two runs in the bottom of the sixth inning. They won that game and the state title by scoring a run in the top of the seventh on an RBI single by Sydney Snyder and then holding off the Colts in the bottom of the inning.

In this year's final FAB 50 national rankings, North Davidson (27-5) was placed at No. 26 while Cape Fear finished at No. 33.

Lambros had an unbeaten team (33-0) that was No. 1 in one national ranking in 2010, but had not gotten another state title until this year. His story, of course, has more to do than with state titles and wins. Last August, the 64-year-old head coach was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and he had to undergo numerous chemotherapy treatments during the high school season. And during a fund-raiser game being played in his honor early in the season, his mother, Mary, suffered a heart attack and could not be revived.

For keeping his girls focused on playing their best at the end of the season and for serving as such a shining example to other coaches throughout the country on how to handle difficult situations, we salute Mike Lambros as the 2017 National Coach of the Year.