Transfer Helps University Top No. 2 Woodbridge

Located less than five miles apart, University and Woodbridge are natural rivals. Throw in the fact that both schools are ranked among the county’s top five teams and that two of Woodbridge’s top players transferred to University, and suddenly a nonleague boys’ tennis match becomes a life and death affair.

Rackets were thrown, linesmen were called in to settle disputes on several courts and coaches walked around all day counting up games because of the closeness of the match.

After 3 1/2 hours, fourth-ranked University had won nine sets and second-ranked Woodbridge had won nine sets but University took the match because it had won 91 games to Woodbridge’s 82.

The deciding set?

Naturally, it came down to University junior Jon Biorkman, who along with his younger brother, Greg, transferred from Woodbridge over the summer. Biorkman had lost his first two sets to Adam Artunian (6-4) and Reza Farokhpay (6-2) and now he was playing Woodbridge’s best player, Chase Exon.

Exon, limping badly on a pulled leg muscle, led, 4-3, until he started making unforced errors and Biorkman started moving Exon around on his sore leg. Biorkman took the set, 6-4, by winning the last three games. In 30 minutes, he had gone from goat to hero.

“I knew I had to win my last match,” Biorkman said. “I didn’t play well my first two sets, but I knew if I kept plugging it would get better. With everything going on, I didn’t concentrate my first two sets but by the third set I calmed down and just started playing tennis.”

Minutes later, University won its ninth set and the match, with Chris Seid’s 6-1 victory over Farokhpay.

“Everyone wanted to win real bad,” Farokhpay said. “It’s a cross-town rivalry and pride is on the line. We tried not to think about [the Biorkmans transferring], but it’s kind of hard to put that out of your mind.”

Biorkman said it was also hard to ignore comments that were made in the newspaper by some of Woodbridge’s players.

“They were saying how confident they were and that they were going to beat us,” Biorkman said. “We kept quiet all day and did our talking on the court.”

University (7-2) wound up winning only three singles sets--Biorkman’s one and Seid’s two--but the Trojans won six of nine doubles sets. The No. 1 team of Felix Ling and Alex Oh swept, 6-1, 6-0, 6-2. But the biggest victory went to the No. 2 team of Joey Freedman and Doug McCan in the second round. Freedman and McCan trailed Tyler Call and Tyler Smith, 6-3, in the tiebreaker, but won the next five points and took the set, 7-6 (8-6).