Matt Helsel

Title

Head Men's and Women's Tennis Coach

Matt Helsel's impact on Elizabethtown College tennis can best be summed up as seismic. Helsel took over the men's and women's programs in 2002, and has spent the last 14 years transforming them into two of the region's most recognized and accomplished teams.

Helsel is the winningest coach in Blue Jay men's (141) and women's (172) tennis history. His programs have a combined 13 conference championships and seven NCAA Division III Tournament appearances. Elizabethtown's women's team enters 2015-16 having captured six straight conference championships dating back to 2009-10.

Helsel is in his 15th season as head coach of the men's squad and 14th leading the women in 2015-16.

In addition to coaching the men's and women's tennis teams at E-town, Helsel is a local real estate agent with Keller Williams.

A 1991 graduate of Lampeter-Strasburg High School, Helsel 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 1992-94, before returning to school to receive his bachelor of arts degree in business administration from Elizabethtown in 2007.

COACHING THE MEN
Prior to Helsel's arrival, Elizabethtown's men's program had gone more than five decades sans a conference title. That all changed in 2005, as Helsel delivered the Blue Jays the Commonwealth Conference championship.

E-town added three more conference championships to its name in successive years from 2011-13 has qualified for the postseason in nine of the last 11 seasons.

Helsel guided the Blue and Gray to its winningest decade, with 103 wins in his first 10 years as head coach. He surpassed Robert Garrett for the most wins by an E-town men's tennis coach with his 137th in a 5-3 Commonwealth Conference semifinal win at Alvernia May 2, 2014.

Elizabethtown followed up a record setting 2009-10 season, in which it won 13 matches, by equaling that total in 2010-11 and 2011-12. In 2010-11, Helsel directed his team past Lycoming in the Commonwealth Conference championship match and into the NCAA Division III Tournament for the first time in school history. The Jays repeated the feat during the 2011-12 season by defeating Lebanon Valley for their second consecutive conference crown and again qualifying for the national tournament.

Every one of the program's top 10 combined wins leaders (singles & doubles) have been coached by Helsel, as have nine of the top 10 singles victors and nine of the top 10 doubles winners.

Helsel became the second coach at the College to achieve 100 career victories when the Jays swept Alvernia, 9-0, April 17, 2011. He is the only coach to lead both the men's and women's programs to 100 victories.

In the spring of 2005, Helsel led E-town to its first conference title in program history, 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 tournament, the Jays blew out Albright 6-1 in the semifinals and defeated Messiah 5-2 in the championship match. In 2007 and 2009, the Blue Jays finished as the Commonwealth Conference runner-up.

Helsel has compiled a 141-102 career record with the men's team.

In Helsel's first season, the Blue Jays finished above .500, going 10-9 overall. Remarkably, the Blue Jays went 10-2 in their last 12 matches of 2002 after a tough start against strong competition on the team's spring trip to Hilton Head Island, S.C.

Helsel coached five players and one doubles team to flight titles at the MAC Individual Championships and oversaw Elizabethtown's transition to the Landmark Conference in 2014-15.

A total of 33 players have been chosen as all-conference selections under Helsel. He was voted Commonwealth Conference Coach of the Year in 2005, 2010-11 and 2012-13, by his conference colleagues.

Matt Helsel Year-by-Year Men's Coaching Record
	Overall			Conference
Year	Wins	Losses	Pct.	Wins	Losses	Pct.	Postseason
2002	10	9	.526	4	2	.667
2003	12	4	.750	5	2	.714
2004	7	7	.500	3	4	.429
2005	14	4	.778	7	0	1.000	Commonwealth Conference Champions
2005-06	4	12	.250	2	4	.333
2006-07	9	12	.429	4	2	.667	Commonwealth Conference Runner-up
2007-08	9	6	.600	3	1	.750	Commonwealth Conference Semifinals
2008-09	12	4	.750	5	0	1.000	Commonwealth Conference Runner-up
2009-10	13	5	.722	6	0	1.000	Commonwealth Conference Runner-up
2010-11	13	6	.684	6	0	1.000	Commonwealth Conference Champions NCAA Division III Tournament First Round
2011-12	13	7	.650	6	0	1.000	Commonwealth Conference Champions NCAA Division III Tournament Second Round
2012-13	14	4	.778	6	0	1.000	Commonwealth Conference Champions NCAA Division III Tournament First Round
2013-14	7	10	.412	4	2	.667	Commonwealth Conference Runner-up
2014-15	4	12	.250	2	6	.250
14 seasons	141	102	.580	63	23	.733
NOTE: Men's tennis was a spring sport until 2005, but began competing in the fall and spring seasons starting with the 2005-06 season.

COACHING THE WOMEN
The College's move to the Landmark Conference in 2014-15 left the Blue Jay women without a chance to defend their title as five-time reigning champions of the Commonwealth Conference.

Helsel got his team to start a new streak instead.

Elizabethtown was a perfect 7-0 in the regular season during its first season in the Landmark and went on to win the conference championship over Scranton –the program's sixth consecutive league title going back to 2009-10. The Blue Jays have won nine conference titles in the last 11 seasons.

With a 16-4 overall record, the 2014-15 Blue Jays matched the 2012-13 team for the third most wins in a season in program history, trailing only the 2011-12 (18-3) and 2006-07 (17-3) teams.

Helsel owns a 172-57 career record and led the Blue Jays to eight Commonwealth Conference titles between 2004-14. The team has regularly appeared in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association's (ITA) regional rankings since the spring of 2004.

A well-rounded lineup deep in talent has delieved the Jays no less than 10 wins in each of the last 11 seasons. In 2011-12, the women set a new program standard with 18 wins and claimed the program's first NCAA Division III Tournament victory, 5-2, over Endicott (Mass.).

The Blue Jays' run of dominance began with a perfect 14-0 season in 2004. It was the women's tennis program's first unbeaten season since 1977 and fifth all-time.

In the spring of 2010, the Jays completed a 15-5 season, 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 Final was No. 350 in team history.

Elizabethtown won back-to-back Commonwealth Conference team titles in the fall of 2004 and 2005. The 2006-07 team's 17-3 overall record stood as the winningest season in program history for five seasons until the 2011-12 team broke it, while the 2007-08 Blue Jays won the Commonwealth Conference title and advanced to the program's first NCAA Division III Tournament.

Helsel earned his 100th victory against Kutztown March 11, 2011 and surpassed Yvonne Kauffman as the program's wins leader later that season with his 109th coming in the Jays' Commonwealth Conference semifinal victory over Lycoming April, 27.

An eight-time Commonwealth Conference Coach of the Year award recipient (2003, 2004, 2005-06, 2006-07, 2009-10, 2010-11, 2011-12, 2013-14), Helsel mentored 10 MAC individual singles champions and six doubles champions.

Matt Helsel Year-by-Year Women's Coaching Record
	Overall			Conference
Year	Wins	Losses	Pct.	Wins	Losses	Pct.	Postseason
2002	6	8	.429	3	4	.429
2003	9	4	.692	5	2	.714
2004	14	0	1.000	7	0	1.000	Commonwealth Conference Champions
2005-06	14	4	.778	5	1	.833	Commonwealth Conference Champions
2006-07	17	3	.850	6	0	1.000	Commonwealth Conference Runner-up
2007-08	13	4	.765	4	0	1.000	Commonwealth Conference Champions NCAA Division III Tournament First Round
2008-09	10	5	.667	3	2	.600	Commonwealth Conference Runner-up
2009-10	15	5	.750	6	0	1.000	Commonwealth Conference Champions NCAA Division III Tournament First Round
2010-11	12	6	.667	6	0	1.000	Commonwealth Conference Champions NCAA Division III Tournament First Round
2011-12	18	3	.857	6	0	1.000	Commonwealth Conference Champions NCAA Division III Tournament Second Round
2012-13	16	4	.800	6	0	1.000	Commonwealth Conference Champions NCAA Division III Tournament Second Round
2013-14	12	7	.632	6	0	1.000	Commonwealth Conference Champions NCAA Division III Tournament First Round
2014-15	16	4	.800	7	0	1.000	Landmark Conference Champions NCAA Division III Tournament First Round
13 seasons	172	57	.751	70	9	.886
NOTE: Women's tennis was a fall sport until 2004, but began competing in fall and spring seasons starting with the 2005-06 season.

Updated 1/20/16