Tennis Info:
Head Coach: Matt Helsel
Elizabethtown College named Matt Helsel of Lancaster, Pa. head coach of its men's tennis program prior to the start of the 2002 season. Helsel is the ninth person to serve as head coach in the 61 year history of the program. After the spring 2002 season, he also took over as head coach of the women's tennis program at Elizabethtown.
In the spring of 2005, Helsel guided Elizabethtown's men's tennis team to its first conference title in the history of the program as the Blue Jays rattled off a 14-4 overall record and ran up a 7-0 mark in the Commonwealth Conference during the regular season. In the conference playoffs, the Blue Jays blew out Albright 6-1 in the semifinals and defeated Messiah 5-2 in the championship match. In the spring of 2007, the Blue Jays finished as the Commonwealth Conference runners-up.
In his first year, he guided the Blue Jays to their fifth consecutive .500-or-better season, as Etown went 10-9 overall. Remarkably, the Blue Jays went 10-2 in their last 12 matches of 2002 after a tough start against stiff competition in Hilton Head, SC. Helsel also coached Bill Miller '02 to his first appearance in the Middle Atlantic Conference individual singles championship match in 2002.
Under Helsel, Blue Jay players have received all-conference recognition 13 times since 2002, and Helsel himself was named the Commonwealth Conference Coach of the Year in 2005. Also in 2005, Greg Voshell '05 and Josh Miller '05 each earned Middle Atlantic States Collegiate Athletic Corporation (MASCAC) individual singles championships at number three and number four, respectively.
In five years, the men's tennis team has gone 56-48 under Helsel, and the team has posted three years of ten wins or more. He has also led the women's tennis team to back-to-back Commonwealth Conference titles in the fall 2004 and fall 2005 seasons. He has also twice been named the conference's Coach of the Year in women's tennis. His career record in women's tennis stands at 60-19 in five years, giving Helsel a combined career record of 116-67 in men's and women's tennis through 2006-07.
In addition to coaching the men's and women's tennis teams at Etown, Helsel also teaches tennis in the Lancaster area at the Hempfield Sports Complex and Bent Creek Country Club.
A 1991 graduate of Lampeter-Strasburg High School, he returned to his alma mater as head tennis coach for four years. He was an English and political science double major at Millersville University from 1992 to 1994.
Email coach Helsel at etowntennis@comcast.net
