Gregori’s top doubles team clinches playoff victory over Merced

Abraham Apellanes and Roel Dahuya knew something big was happening.

The Gregori High doubles tandem isn’t used to having so many sets of eyes watching them play. Usually, the Jaguars matches are all but decided by the time they finish, with only a handful of parents left in attendance.

So when just about every other Gregori and Merced High player lined the fence to witness their No. 1 doubles match against the Bears’ top team of Duy Trinh and Kyle Shen, they figured a lot must be riding on the outcome.

Only the fate of their season.

Apellanes and Dahuya held on for a 4-6, 6-3, 6-3 win that propelled the Jags to a 5-4 victory and into the second round of the Sac-Joaquin Section playoffs, where they’ll face the winner of the Vintage-Granite Bay matchup.

“I kept telling myself, ‘This is nothing; play like usual,’” said Dahuya, a sophomore. “I tried not to get inside my own head. I have a bad habit of doing that, of thinking too much.”

With Gregori holding a 4-3 lead in the overall team score, the Bears and Jags were even at a set apiece. In the decisive third set, Apellanes and Dahuya jumped ahead 3-1. Then Trinh and Shen broke the Jaguars’ tandem and held serve to knot the set at three games apiece. From there, however, the Jags swept the next three games to clinch the match.

“I tried to pay no mind to it,” said Apellanes, who mentioned that he sometimes has difficulty dealing with pressure situations. “Today, I was a bit more calm ... somehow. That helped.”

Gregori took a 4-3 overall lead when the No. 2 team of Ben Duewell and Sam Stapley secured a straight-sets win over Spencer Fluetsch and Andre Orellana.

“We knew walking onto the court that we’d lost a couple,” said Stapley, standing along a chain-link fence in a stiff afternoon breeze, watching the No. 1 doubles match. “Once the score gets close, you rally the troops and try to be supportive. Sometimes that can make the difference between a win and a loss.”

This story was originally published May 5, 2015 at 10:34 PM with the headline "Gregori’s top doubles team clinches playoff victory over Merced."