Garrett College

Eric Hallenbeck enters his seventeenth season as head coach of Garrett College’s baseball program. His sixteen-year record is 350-427-3. The Lakers were 8-5 during the 2020 campaign until the COVID-19 pandemic caused the NJCAA to cancel the rest of the season. Prior to the 2020 season, the Lakers were coming off back to back final four appearances. In 2018 the Lakers were the last seed in the tournament and upset the #5 seed and #4 seed to make the final four while upsetting the #1 seed in the tournament. This past year as the #6 seed the Lakers defeated the #7 seed and upset the #3 seed to make the final four tournament again. Garrett College has made the Region XX playoffs every year with the Lakers making a final four appearance in 2015 with a 31-21 record. While at Garrett he has coached one first team All-American, one Academic All-American, eleven first team all-region XX players, four all district players, three first team MD Juco and two Rawlings Big Stick Award winners.

Prior to Garrett, Hallenbeck was served as an Associate Head Coach and top assistant for seven years at Frostburg State University. During his tenure at Frostburg State, he helped guide the team to a 205-102-1 overall record while compiling a 54-19 Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference record. As FSU’s recruiting coordinator the Bobcats won three AMCC Tournament Championships (1998, 1999, 2004), had 44 All-AMCC selections and four league Most Valuable Players.

A former catcher and designated hitter at Frostburg State from 1991-94, Hallenbeck started his coaching career in the summer of 1993 as an assistant for the Brunswick (MD) American Legion.

In 1994, he started his own legion program in Boonsboro, MD. Two years later, Hallenbeck joined the coaching staff at Frederick Community College as their pitching coach, where the team set a school record for wins with 29, finished 13^th in the nation and posted a team earned run average of 3.50. In 1997, Hallenbeck returned to his alma mater to serve as an assistant.

For nine years, Hallenbeck was the catching instructor for the Ripken Baseball School. In addition to his coaching duties, Hallenbeck also serves as the Assistant Athletic Director of Men’s Sports and is an adjunct faculty member.

“It was unfortunate our season ended abruptly like all programs around the country did. If you are not a baseball person it is hard to understand what all goes into having a college baseball season. That’s why this is so disheartening for the coaching staff and players. We put in a lot of work to get to March, April and May. We had big road wins versus Potomac State and Harford early on and had a three-game winning streak heading to Myrtle Beach. All of a sudden season is cancelled. That is a tough pill to swallow especially for a 18-20-year-old student-athlete. I just told my guys that things happen for a reason and that we will get through this and be better for it. We as a country have bigger fish to fry and hopefully we can move on from this soon and get back to some kind of normalcy, “Hallenbeck said.    

Hallenbeck received his bachelor’s degree in physical education with concentrations in coaching and health fitness from Frostburg State in May 1997.

He is also the proud father of two beautiful children, Madison Brooke (20) and Zachary George (16).