Cherry Hill East’s Rahul Goculdas defeated Bishop Eustace’s Christian Akerley to win the Camden County high school boys’ tennis singles’ final, held Sunday morning at Eastern High School.
Goculdas, a sophomore and the number one singles’ player for the Cougars, needed a first-set tiebreaker to defeat Akerley, the top player for the Crusaders. After tying the opening set at six games apiece, Goculdas won the tiebreaker, 7-2, before shutting out Akerley, 6-0, in the second set.
Goculdas reached the final with a straight-set win over Eastern’s Parth Hardikar, 6-0, 6-1. Akerley advanced to the title match with a straight-set win over Goculdas’ teammate, Elon Boyarsky, 6-4, 6-1.
In the doubles’ tournament, the Cherry Hill East tandem of Sam Yoon and Jesse DuBrow claimed the title with a straight set victory over the Haddonfield pair of Dan Moramarco and Nick Dante, 6-1, 6-1.
Both finalists had to go three sets to reach the final, each against a team from Eastern. Yoon and Dubrow held off the Vikings’ pairing of Nick Mattioli and Pranov Chugh, 6-4, 2-6, 6-3. Moramarco and Dante had to survive a third-set tiebreaker against Eastern’s Alex Feldstein and Anthony Stella, 4-6, 6-4, 7-6, with the Bulldogs’ pair winning the tiebreak, 8-6.