Matt Helsel was named the head coach of the women's tennis program at Elizabethtown College in the spring of 2002, and he has turned the Blue Jays into one of the top teams in the South Atlantic Region. He’s currently in his ninth season as head women's coach in 2010-11 and has racked up a gaudy career record of 83-28.
The team has been regionally ranked by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association every spring and fall season since the spring of 2004, and won the Commonwealth Conference championship in the spring of 2008. In the spring of 2010 the Jays completed a 15-5 season under Helsel’s leadership, which included the program’s fourth Commonwealth Conference Championship. The team advanced to the NCAA Division III Tournament and its victory over Lebanon Valley in the Commonwealth Conference finals was the 350th in team history.
Elizabethtown won back-to-back Commonwealth Conference team titles in the fall of 2004 and 2005. The team completed an undefeated 14-0 season in 2004, and backed it up with a 14-4 record in 2005-06, and a 17-3 mark in 2006-07. In 2007-08, the Blue Jays won the Commonwealth Conference title and advanced to the NCAA Division III Tournament for the first time in program history.
Helsel also took over the men's tennis program in early 2002, and he guided that team to its first-ever Commonwealth Conference title in the spring of 2005.
Helsel has built up strong non-traditional season schedules for his Blue Jays. The women's team travels to Hilton Head, S.C. for a non-traditional season spring break tournament and has additional spring matches after spring break.
In addition to coaching the men's and women's tennis teams at E-town, Helsel is a local real estate agent with Coldwell Banker Select Professionals in Lancaster.
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, and earned a bachelor of arts degree in business administration from Elizabethtown in 2007.
