The adrenaline was flowing so much that Taryn Fujimori doesn’t quite remember what happened.

All she does know is it’s where she wanted to be four years ago as a Mililani senior.

The 2018 Trojan graduate spent two years at the University of Oregon before transferring to Linfield University during the COVID-19 pandemic.

After making the All-Northwest Conference first team as a junior, Fujimori is now competing at the No. 1 singles position for the Wildcats, and she found herself in a drama-filled tiebreaker on Sunday against cross-country rival George Fox.

Fujimori lost the opening set 6-4 and was behind in the tiebreaker before coming back for a thrilling 10-8 victory to win in three sets.

She improved to 4-1 in singles this season when playing in the No. 1 flight and was awarded Monday with the Northwest Conference Student-Athlete of the Week award.

“That was really cool to have the opportunity to be recognized. The match I played on Sunday in singles was really tough,” Fujimori said in a phone interview Tuesday. “I never thought I would be playing when I first looked at colleges (in high school) and I never imagined I’d be playing at Linfield and in that moment of being in this super-close tiebreaker (at the top position).”

Fujimori’s collegiate tennis journey began roughly a two-hour drive from the Linfield campus in McMinnville, Ore.

As a freshman at the University of Oregon in Eugene, she thought she would have an opportunity to try out for the women’s tennis team.

After a meeting with the coaching staff once she arrived on campus, she was dealt the harsh news that they wouldn’t even give her a shot.

An avid tennis player and two-time OIA doubles champion in high school, Fujimori didn’t want to continue to work out and practice every day just to play recreational tennis.

She kept her workout regime, but the tennis racket stayed in the bag.

“It was pretty tough at first because I think I kind of got my hopes up and was excited about the possibility of being able to try out, and then having them say the first time they weren’t even going to let me try, that was a little hard,” Fujimori said. “I would still work out, but I wouldn’t play tennis. They had a ball machine at Oregon I would get a couple of hits in on, but then after that initial meeting, that’s when I stopped hitting the ball.”

Fujimori had started to move on from her dream of playing collegiate tennis when she got a phone call from the same coach after she got back from Christmas break.

They were interested in having her try out.

Fujimori did well enough to earn a spot on the team, and for the next 14 months, she got to practice every day against some incredibly talented players, and even played in a few nonconference matches.

The team was in California getting ready for road matches against Arizona and Stanford when the pandemic began. Less than 72 hours later, Fujimori was already home in Hawaii to finish the rest of the semester taking classes online.

She left her apartment not knowing that the next time she would return, it was to clear out her stuff and head down the road to a new school.

“My cousin (Haley Fujimori) graduated from Linfield last May and was actually the one who convinced me to transfer to Linfield,” Taryn said. “Linfield was one of the schools I was looking at initially when I first looked at colleges and I kind of always was looking into pursuing a nursing degree and Oregon didn’t have one. At the time I was looking at schools, I wasn’t set on nursing, so it didn’t occur to me to check and see if the school had (a program).”

The other reason for transferring was also a big deal.

“I wanted to be competitive and compete for a team,” Taryn explained. “At Oregon, I was a walk-on and my teammates were skill-wise so much better than me, so I knew my playing time would be very minimal. A part of me was missing being competitive in matches.”

She certainly is getting that chance now.

Fujimori immediately began competing at the No. 2 position in both singles and doubles as a junior with the Wildcats.

She led the team in wins at doubles, compiling a 13-2 record while going 7-7 in singles to earn all-conference honors.

This year, she’s on a seven-match winning streak in doubles with an 8-2 record overall, and is 6-4 in singles, including a 3-1 mark in conference play at the No. 1 spot.

The Wildcats have four more matches before the conference tournament April 23-24.

“Tennis has been a big part of my experience at Linfield,” Fujimori said. “I’m super grateful to Oregon for giving me the opportunity to play at that level, and I learned so much from the coaches there who really took care of me.

“I think the coaches here have done an amazing job refining my skills, and I’m so grateful to my Linfield team because I was a transfer and they still welcomed me in with opens arms and my coach goes above and beyond to make sure I’m taken care of not only on the court but off of it as well.”