Lance Billingsley’s high school varsity baseball resume was blank until Mountain Ridge called this summer, and it appears that Mountain Ridge picked the right man for the job.

Billingsley, a real estate agent, has lived in Mountain Ridge’s boundary for the past ten years and is well known in the Northwest Valley’s youth baseball coaching circles. He guided a Valley Little League team, Arrowhead, to the Little League West Regional in San Bernardino in 2010 and won two state youth titles.

Billingsley coached Mountain Ridge’s junior varsity team (15-4) last season, when he applied for the varsity job. Mountain Ridge’s former head coach, Will Ambos, pushed for Billingsley to take over when Ambos stepped down because of health reasons and a busy teaching schedule.

Billingsley won’t need to introduce himself to his players, as most of them have known their new head coach since they were about eight or nine years old.  

“I believe in my faith, family and baseball,” Billingsley said. “In that order. There’s no question in my mind that I was put here (Glendale) to coach (Mountain Ridge’s) kids.”

Billingsley also seems to have his high school baseball coaching priorities in order.

“There’s no pressure to win games,” he said. “I think there’s talent. But I was not hired to win baseball games. I was hired to lead young men and help them develop to be what they are supposed to be. I can’t promise parents that their kids will make the team and what position they’ll play. But I can promise you they will become dads and husbands and get a job, and I will help prepare them for that.”

Billingsley grew up in Tucson and played baseball at Amphitheater High. 

(Lance Billingsley)