Transylvania University

Zack Getsee is in his ninth year as head coach of the Transylvania baseball program for the 2026 season.

Since his arrival, Getsee has steadily built an annual contender at Transylvania which continues its ascent on the national stage. Transylvania proved once again in the 2025 season that they are a force to be dealt with at the top of the conference. After battling for the top spot in the regular season, the Pioneers once again reached the conference championship game. For their season long efforts, Drew Bowles was named the HCAC Pitcher of the Year and Giancarlo Gonzalez was named the HCAC Newcomer of the Year.
 The 2024 season resulted in a plethora of never-before-seen accomplishments for the team. The Pioneers hosted the NCAA Regional and advanced to the regional championship before bowing out on Sunday afternoon. Along the way the team set the school record for wins (34). In addition team accomplishments multiple individual players set new single-season records. Henry Mitcham (RBI), Matt Armstrong (Saves), Austin Taylor (Doubles), Calvin Schubert (HBP), Trent Pahl (HR), Trent Youngblood (BB, OBP, SLG, SB, Runs). Finally, to cap the year, Trent Youngblood was drafted in the 10th round by the Arizona Diamondbacks. He became the first player from Transylvania University to be drafted and was the highest drafted Division III offensive player since 2017.

The 2023 season saw the Pioneers pay dividends from their youth in the prior season. Securing the 2nd overall seed in the HCAC Tournament with an overall record of 24-19.  

Getsee’s Pioneers unleashed a historic season in 2021, establishing an array of new program standards, and highlighted by the program’s first-ever NCAA Tournament victory in June 2021. Against a nationally turbulent 2021 season, Getsee’s team orchestrated a masterpiece campaign, winning the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference regular season and tournament crowns in the same season for the first time in program history. Guiding the Pioneers through a conference-only regular season schedule in the 2021 season, Transylvania furnished a regular-season record of 26-10 to capture the HCAC regular-season title and the No. 1 seed in the conference tournament. As the tournament hosts the Pioneers went 5-0 to win their first conference tournament in 13 seasons, and clinched their program’s second NCAA Tournament berth.

Getsee guided the Pioneers to the program’s first NCAA Tournament victory at the Decatur, Illinois Regional with an 11-6 watershed win over Illinois College on May 28, 2021. Though the Pioneers bowed out of the NCAA Regional in three games, the Pioneers went toe-to-toe with No. 2 ranked Webster in two games, coming up one run short in the season finale, setting the stage for the next step in the program’s evolution.

Transylvania’s journey back to the NCAA Tournament under Getsee featured a wealth of individual and team accomplishments in 2021. Senior Hudson Chastain broke the Pioneer baseball record for single season hits, registering 84, which also ranked second in the country in 2021. Freshman Trent Youngblood also established new history for the Pioneers, becoming just the second player after Chastain to record 76 hits in a season, the most by a Pioneer newcomer in their first season.

Along with leading the Pioneers to unprecedented team success, Getsee’s team established a slew of new standards over the 2021 campaign. Transylvania turned in an overall record of 32-12, the most by a Pioneer baseball team in the 26-year history of the restarted program. Transylvania ranked fourth nationally in total hits, 16th in the country in batting average, and 20th nationally in runs per game. Chastain was named to the D3Baseball.com’s All-Region Second Team while senior pitcher Jake Schmidt and Youngblood were each named to the D3Baseball.com All-Region Third Team.      

In 2021, Transylvania players gleaned additional accolades as Chastain garnered ABCA/Rawlings All-Region First Team honors, Schmidt and Youngblood were named All-Region Second Team, and Riley Willbur was named All-Region Third Team. Chastain established an indelible standard with his selection to the 2021 CoSIDA Academic All-America Third Team, his second consecutive season earning those elite honors.

Getsee’s orchestration of Transylvania’s greatest season in 2021 is the latest progression in his reconstruction of a Transylvania baseball squad with a blueprint focused towards not only contending on an annual basis for the HCAC crown, but a national championship.

In a pandemic-shortened 2020 season, the Pioneers continued to make significant strides under Getsee while competing in their inaugural season at their new home venue of Whitaker Bank Ballpark in Lexington. Waging the sixth-strongest strength of schedule in the country, the Pioneers reeled off a 6-5 win-loss record which included victories against No. 18 Coe, and a pair of wins against No. 12 Denison. The Pioneers signed off a brief but impressive campaign with victories against regional powers Chicago and Capital. Transylvania’s progress was also recognized by D3 Baseball, whose 2020 RPI rankings tabbed the Pioneers as the 11th best team in the country and the second-highest ranked team in the Great Lakes Region.

Under Getsee’s direction, the Pioneers returned to the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference Tournament in 2019 for the first time in three seasons, certifying the latest step in the program’s resurgence.

Transylvania’s berth in the HCAC playoffs capped off a milestone year for the Pioneers which witnessed the team defeating a top 25 team in Webster University during the opening weekend of the season, sophomore infielder Hudson Chastain writing the new program record for single-season hits with 66 in the regular season, a four-game improvement in conference play from the previous season, and furnished the conference leader in batting average as Chastain produced a .410 BA.

Under Getsee, the Pioneers ranked second in the HCAC in stolen bases (90), third in batting average (.293), third in hits (404), and third in total bases (525). Getsee’s battery also made marked improvements as sophomore pitcher Caleb Neal emerged second all-time on the Pioneer program single-season record list for most strikeouts per nine innings (10.1).  

After an initial 13-24 run in the 2017 season, Getsee’s second season in Transylvania brought about a four-game improvement as he restocked the pitching corps and engineered a six-game winning streak at the midpoints of the 2018 campaign. Getsee’s second year at the helm for the Pioneers witnessed a number of unique achievements, including wins against rival Centre, and junior outfielder Isaac Taylor setting a new Division III single-game record for steals in a game with eight. Under Getsee’s guidance, Taylor earned All-HCAC Second Team honors for 2018 along with a CoSIDA Academic All-District First Team distinctions. Freshman infielder Hudson Chastain also earned All-HCAC Honorable Mention honors to cap off a productive 2018 season.

Getsee came to Lexington in the summer of 2016 after spending the previous five years as the head assistant coach at Division III Webster University in St. Louis, Missouri.

During Getsee’s tenure as assistant coach at Webster, the Gorloks amassed an overall record of 171-61 (.737). Playing in the St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Association, Webster captured five regular season titles, advancing to the Division III College World Series in three of those runs.

While at Webster, Getsee had an integral role in an offense which finished in the top-10 nationally in stolen bases in three of his final four seasons in St. Louis; in 2015 and 2016 the Gorloks ranked in the top-10 nationally in doubles and home runs.

Serving as the top assistant under Bill Kurich at Webster, Getsee was part of a staff that guided the Gorloks to a school record for most wins with 37 in both 2013 and 2014. The Gorloks finished the 2014 regular season ranked #1 overall in the D3Baseball.com poll, and #2 nationally in the ABCA coaches’ poll. In 2012 and 2013, Webster recorded fifth-place finishes at the Division III College World Series, and in the process, became the first school out of the state of Missouri to ever win a game at the D-III World Series.

Serving in roles of both catching coach and hitting coach, Getsee has coached five ABCA Rawlings All-Americans. Webster also had success off the field as Getsee helped engineer an academic study system that resulted in a team of 35 players achieving a cumulative grade-point average of better than 3.0.

In addition to his works at Webster, Getsee spent the summer of 2016 as head coach of the Quincy Gems of the Central Illinois Collegiate League.

Getsee has participated as a camp instructor at DeMarini Top 96 camps in Kentucky, Indiana, Colorado, Kansas, and Alabama. He has also participated in The Complete Showcase, a premier prospect camp for college coaches.

As a player, Getsee was a two-year starter at Southwestern Illinois College in Indiana, where he served as a team captain during that span. Getsee completed his collegiate playing career at NCAA Division II Saint Joseph’s College, playing for head coach Rick O’Dette; Getsee also served as team captain for two years at Saint Joseph’s, and was named to the 2011 Preseason All-American Watch List.

Following his graduation from Saint Joseph’s College in 2011, Getsee played a season of professional baseball for the Lake County Fielders of the North American League.

Getsee added more significant coaching experience to his ledger in the summer of 2020 as he served as the head coach of the Lexington Leyendas, a summer team featuring multiple major league players and MLB draft picks.

Getsee maintains a professional membership with the American Baseball Coaches Association and has been a member since 2011