OKLAHOMA CITY – In his fourth season with the MACU baseball program, Mid-America Christian University Athletics is proud to announce that Kyle Barrett has been elevated to the program's Associate Head Coach.
"I want to thank President Greenwald and Athletic Director Marcus Moeller for this amazing opportunity," said Barrett. "It has been a blessing for my wife, Heather and I coming to MACU. It was a big undertaking for us having lived in California for the past 30 years. MACU has welcomed us with open arms and we are so thankful. We are HOME at MACU. I also want to thank Brett Stanton for giving me the freedom and trust to help him build this program into something special. Finally, I want to thank my wife who is always by my side supporting me and guiding me in this profession. Over these past three-and-a-half years, I have grown so much as a coach, a man and a follower of Christ. I am here at MACU to do great things and I will give everything to this program!"
Primarily working with the Evangels' pitching staff, Barrett has been an instrumental leader in guiding MACU to three of its most successful seasons in program history, amassing a 95-65 record in that time frame, which includes the 2023 campaign where the Evangels went 39-17 and won the program's first NCCAA World Series since moving up to the Division I level in 2008.
"Kyle (Barrett) has been an integral part of the MACU baseball program's success," Stanton stated. "He is a fantastic teacher and mentor to all the players that we have. Kyle has always shown the drive to keep elevating not only the baseball program, but the University's mission and core values. I can't think of anyone more deserving of this promotion. We hope to have many years with Kyle and Heather with our MACU family."
In his three previous seasons at MACU, the Evangels' staff have put together three of the top five lowest ERA seasons while seeing marked improvement each season, posting a 5.85 ERA in 2021, 5.77 ERA in 2022 and a 5.14 ERA in 2023.
During that time span, MACU has also posted three of its top four strikeout seasons, punching out 438 batters in 2021, 407 in 2022 and 360 in 2023 while last season's squad walked a program-record fewest 118 batters, averaging just 2.03 walks per game.
Over the previous three years, Barrett has mentored four All-Sooner Athletic Conference pitchers in Frensly Leito (2021, 2022), Zane Robeaux (2022), Isaac Baez (2023) and Kelton Lachelt (2023) while Leito also earned NCCAA All-America honors in 2022.
Barrett currently has on his staff four pitchers who rank in the program's NAIA Era (2008-present) top 10 in career wins, including: Lachelt (12, 2nd), Robeaux (11, T-3rd), Cameron Brown (11, T-3rd) and Baez (9, T-8th) while Lachelt is the program's all-time saves leader (14). Pitching from 2020-22 under Barrett, Leito is the program's career ERA record holder at 2.09.
On-top of his pitching coach duties, Barrett has been instrumental as the program's recruiting coordinator, bringing in some of the top talent to ever dawn the Evangels uniform. Recording just nine All-SAC performers from 2008-20, Barrett has brought in an incredible talent pool that has notched 15 All-SAC honors in the last three seasons, including three Gold Glove team honorees.
Mid-America Christian will look to continue building on its enormous recent success heading into the 2024 season as the Evangels will open the highly-anticipated season against a pair of NAIA Top 25 teams. The Evangels start the season with a pair of contests on Friday, Jan. 26 as the Evangels will play No. 12 Webber International (Fla.) at noon and No. 15 LSU-Shreveport at 6 p.m. in Shreveport, Louisiana.
