WHS grad Johnston named tennis coach at Wittenberg

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Tyler Johnston was named the men’s and women’s tennis coach at Wittenberg University.

Johnston, a 2009 Wilmington High School graduate, will coach both squads at the Springfield-based institution.

He previously coached tennis at Wright State University. Johnston was a volunteer assistant in 2015-16 and then a full-time assistant in 2016-17 for the Raiders teams.

“Tyler is an extremely energetic and passionate coach and is a great fit for our position,” Wittenberg director of athletics Dr. Gary Williams said in a press release from WU. “He was an accomplished player, a successful head coach, and comes to us most recently working under a great head coach and respected program at Wright State. I could not be more pleased for our student-athletes to have someone who will provide them not only strong technical coaching, but will also be able to motivate and inspire them to be better students and people.”

Johnston won a school record 100 singles matches in the Hurricane orange and black. A four-time district qualifier and three-time sectional champion, Johnston was a two-time Fort Ancient Valley Conference player of the year. He was selected as the Dayton Area co-player of the year in 2009, while later becoming an inductee into the Wilmington High School Sports Hall of Fame.

He advanced to the second round of the state tennis tournament his junior year at WHS, earning honorable mention All-Ohio.

Before becoming the assistant at Wright State, Johnston was the head coach at Vincennes University, a National Junior College Athletic Association school. In his lone season, Johnston lead the 2014-15 Trailblazers to an 8-6 record, with one student-athlete finishing second in the nation in singles. Johnston also recruited and coached two ITA All-Americans in his tenure at Vincennes.

“I am truly grateful for the opportunity that Dr. Williams and the rest of the Wittenberg community has presented me with,” said Johnston. “Wittenberg University is a special place where the bar is set high in the classroom and on the court, I am beyond excited to get to work. Wittenberg has all of the resources and facilities to be a real competitor in our sport, and it is truly an honor to lead both programs.”

As a player, Johnston spent his first two years of college in the NJCAA, where he was nationally ranked in the top 20 in the country in both singles and doubles. A 2014 graduate of Ohio Dominican University, Johnston twice captained and played No. 1 singles and No. 1 doubles for the highly-touted Division II Panthers.

Johnston was also one of the key contributors to Ohio Dominican’s first ever NCAA tournament appearance, the 2014 Ohio Dominican University “Male Pride of The Panther” award recipient, and an ITA Academic Award Winner.

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