AT A GLANCE
- Elevated to head coach in December 2019 (6th season)
- Five seasons as assistant coach on staff
- Three cross country national qualifiers, seven national qualifiers in track and field
AT GETTYSBURG
Hartzler enters his sixth full season as head coach of the cross country and track and field programs in 2024-25. He served as an assistant coach for five seasons before being elevated to interim head coach in the winter of 2020.
After taking over the helm of the track program in December 2019, he saw his student-athletes post records in two events as well as 40 new entries into the program’s top-10 indoor list. Between the 2020 indoor and 2021 outdoor seasons, the Bullets tallied 14 individual All-Centennial Conference honors. In the 2022 seasons, three others added individual all-conference accolades while 2023 brought 10 more all-conference honors and four all-region accolades. Another seven claimed all-conference honors in 2024.
The cross country programs have featured three national qualifiers with Hartzler on the staff. In 2016, Ben Taber ’17 qualified for the NCAA Division III Championship after a fourth-place finish at regionals, marking the best regional finish by a men’s runner in 18 years. Hartzler coached a pair of NCAA participants in the fall of 2017 in Elizabeth Hilfrank ’18 and Sarah Rinehart ’19. Hilfrank went on to become the program’s first All-American in 36 years.
Gettysburg runners have claimed all-region status 13 times and all-conference recognition nine times under Hartzler. The men’s team has won two invitational titles and placed as high as 11th at the NCAA Regional. The women have claimed three invite championships and have improved their regional standing each year, including a 10th-place effort in 2017. The women ascended to sixth place at the regional meet in 2022 for its highest finish in more than a decade and made it back-to-back top-10 showings with a ninth-place finish in 2023. The 2024 women’s team posted a second-place showing at the conference championship and placed third at the regional championship for the best finish since 1992.
In track and field, Hartzler has coached five All-Americans, seven national qualifiers, 24 all-region selections, and 18 Centennial Conference champions. During his first season at Gettysburg, he oversaw the development of NCAA qualifiers Katie Cavanaugh ’16, Katie McCoubrie ’16, and Andre Hinds ’16. Cavanaugh earned national accolades indoors (60-meter hurdles) and outdoors (100-meter hurdles), while Hinds picked up his All-America certificate in the discus outdoors. McCoubrie capped an outstanding career at Gettysburg by winning three conference titles in the jumps in 2016. In 2022, Holly Ferrara '24 broke the 36-year-old javelin record to qualify for the national championship, where she placed fourth to become the first thrower in Gettysburg women's history to claim All-America honors. Ferrara reprised her role in both 2023 and 2024, becoming the first Gettysburg woman to be an All-American in the same event three times.
During the 2017-18 season, Gettysburg featured a total of 20 all-conference performers. Ty Abdul-Karim ’18 nailed down championships in the 100-meter dash and the 200-meter dash, becoming the first Bullet in program history to win a CC crown in either event. The women picked up their first-ever championships in the 4x800-meter relay during the conference indoor meet, while adding individual titles by Kendra Meredith ’18 (long jump) and Ellery Lyon ’18 (javelin) at the CC Outdoor Championship. This past season, Nicholas Grissinger ’21 and Steven Heinbaugh ’22 both claimed individual titles in the 400-meter hurdles and decathlon, respectively, at the CC Outdoor Championship.
PRIOR TO GETTYSBURG
Prior to Gettysburg, Hartzler served as an assistant cross country and track and field coach for two seasons at Division III Bluffton University from 2012-14, working primarily with sprinters and jumpers in track. He also spent two years as an assistant track and field coach at Mifflin County High School, where he coached multiple state qualifiers.
PLAYING DAYS
As a student-athlete, Hartzler began his collegiate career at Penn State-Behrend, where he qualified for the NCAA Division III Outdoor Track and Field Championship in the high jump as a sophomore. He then transferred to Penn State University, where he provisionally qualified for the NCAA Division I Championship in the same event, leaping 7-1 1/2 as a senior. Also at Penn State, Hartzler served as a strength and conditioning intern, working primarily with Penn State’s Olympic sports.
Hartzler, a native of Belleville, Pa., graduated from Penn State in 2011 with a degree in kinesiology. He also earned an MBA from Bluffton in 2014.
