By Gabriel Rizk
As one of the most successful returning doubles teams in the area, it would have been easy for Hemet High’s Josiah Lashley and Joseph Gallegos to spend their senior season piling up wins and accolades together.
However, it soon became apparent that comfortable arrangement would make it extremely difficult for the Bulldogs to win matches.
“The key was just finding the right lineup,” Gallegos said. “For the longest time we were losing a lot of our games because we didn’t have the talent equally spread out.” On March 8, Hemet lost to Paloma Valley on games to fall to 1-5. It was the team’s third agonizing tiebreaker loss of the year and forced Coach Jason Hogan to re-examine the lineup strategy.
Splitting up the reigning Mountain Pass League doubles champions wasn’t a decision arrived at lightly. But it no longer seemed viable to have the team’s two best athletes in a position to affect only three sets per match.
“On the bus on the way back we all sat there and tried to play different scenarios of who to split up and that was the agreement we came to,” Hogan said. “They came to the conclusion that we needed to do it. I had flirted with the idea, but I knew they liked playing together.
They were sick of losing as a team.”
There hasn’t been much losing since. After moving Lashley into the No. 1 singles spot and teaming Gallegos with a new partner in doubles, the Bulldogs opened league play on a 5-0 run and entered Tuesday’s league match at Citrus Hill back over .500 at 6-5.
Gallegos’ partnership with first-year player, junior Cody Rodriguez, has been surprisingly effective, as the two have yet to lose.
Lashley has lost just once in singles, to league champion Andy Zanforlin of Beaumont on March 16. But the biggest takeaway for Hemet from that key match was by far the team result; a 13-5 Hemet win that signaled a power shift in a league that Beaumont has dominated with undefeated titles the past three years.
“In all of my high school career I haven’t been able to beat Beaumont,” Lashley said. “Now we were able to, so that was really cool. It’s different being top dog. I like it though.”
Having zipped through the first half of league untouched, it’s now the Bulldogs who have visions of an unbeaten league crown. That prospect has helped make up for not being able to play doubles together, but there are other areas of the game Lashley and Gallegos have found fulfillment in.
“It was a little sad, but I don’t mind too much switching over to singles,” Lashley said. “Singles is still a fun game and I’ve played it before.
“The lineup we have right now shows our team’s ability the best.”
Adds Gallegos: “Not playing with Josiah has been kind of hard just because me and him are the same skill level and we pick each other up really easily when one is feeling down. But my new partner, Cody, he’s new to doubles and I’ve been showing him how to play and we’ve been doing really well together.”
We likely haven’t seen the last of Lashley and Gallegos as a doubles team, though.
Hogan said he will let the two reunite for the league championship tournament so they can defend their doubles title and try to qualify for the CIF Individual Tournament.
“I do want to play with Josiah again,” Gallegos said, “just to see what we can do and how far we can go.”