Cherry Hill East Runners-Up in Group 4 Tennis Championship

Behind semifinal wins from Rachel Pham, Gabrielle Zimmerman and the doubles team of Lauren Romisher and Kristina Klinisova, Cherry Hill East's girls tennis team made a run to the state Group 4 championship match Thursday afternoon.

But Millburn was waiting for them.

The defending Group 4 state champs, who sent both doubles teams to the state doubles tournament finals Wednesday, overwhelmed the South Jersey, Group 4 champion Cougars, scoring a 5-0 victory to win the state title.

East put up a fight, with Klinisova and Romisher winning five games and Zimmerman winning four, but Millburn's loaded lineup—one that's produced 23 straight wins this season—proved too much, getting two straight-set sweeps and not losing a set in winning the championship.

In the morning match against Ridgewood, East eked out the victory thanks to Romisher and Klinisova's marathon three-setter over the team of Erica Kontos and Anna Teresa O'Keefe—the Cougars' tandem breezed in the first set, 6-2, only to have Kontos and O'Keefe return the favor in the second, winning, 6-1.

Klinisova and Romisher got back on the court and gutted it out in a lengthy third set to put the Cougars into the finals, though.

Despite the loss in the finals, it was a better showing for East than two years ago, when the Cougars were bounced in the semifinals by eventual Group 4 champion Bridgewater-Raritan.

It's the fourth time since 1998 the Cougars have finished as runners-up in Group 4, and the first time since 2008; they also won four straight state championships in that span, from 2001 to 2004.