Matt Helsel, the second men's tennis coach in Elizabethtown College history to reach 100 wins, enters his 12th season as head man of the Blue Jays in 2012-13.
The Blue Jay men have risen to the top of the conference and are the two-time defending Commonwealth Conference Champions. Helsel is responsible for leading the team to its winningest decade ever, as E-town totaled 103 wins in his first 10 years as head coach.
Elizabethtown followed up a record setting 2009-10 season, in which it won 13 matches, by equalling that total in 2010-11 and 2011-12. In 2010-11, Helsel directed his team past Lycoming in the CC Final, and into the NCAA Division III Tournament for the first time in school history. The Jays backed it up last season by once again qualifying for the national tournament. They beat Lebanon Valley for their second consecutive conference crown.
Manrique Arrea '12 set new program standards for career singles victories and combined victories under Helsel, while Paul Whitman '13 took down the school's previous single season singles and combined victories records.
All but two of the winningest singles players in program history have played for Helsel.
Helsel reached 100 career victories when the Jays swept Alvernia, 9-0, on April 17, 2011. He is the only tennis coach in school history with 100 or more wins while coaching both the men and women.
In the spring of 2005, Helsel guided the 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 2007 and again in 2009, the Blue Jays finished as the Commonwealth Conference runners-up. Overall, Helsel has compiled a 90-63 career record with the men's team.
In his first year, he guided the Blue Jays to their fifth consecutive season of a .500 record or better, as E-town 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.
E-town has had 31 all-conference selections since Helsel took over the program in 2002, and he was named the Commonwealth Conference Coach of the Year in 2005 and 2010-11. 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 addition to coaching the men's and women's tennis teams at E-town, Helsel is a local real estate agent with Selections Real Estate 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.
