The Sacramento State women’s tennis team is on its way to winning a fourth straight Big Sky Championship led by 17th-ranked Margarita Karnaukhova.

“It’s just another level of tennis,” said head coach Bill Campbell about the Hornets conference opponents.

The Hornets have won the last three conference titles, the most recent, last year’s victory over Northern Arizona.

Last Saturday the Hornets played a rare home-road double-header against Big Sky opponent Montana State and Causeway rival UC Davis.

Montana State provided little resistance against the hornet’s losing 7-0 and not winning a single set.

In a sequence that typified the match, Montana State’s Nicole Luetolf and Karnaukhova had some confusion over whether Karnaukhova was winning 40-0 or 40-15 in one of their games. Karnaukhova gave Luetolf the point then served up and ace.

Game, set, match.

Thanks for coming.

The Aggies were also outmatched as the Hornets took care of them 7-0 as well.

With those two wins, the Hornets now stand at 3-2 overall and 1-0 in conference play.

The two losses came against ranked opponents Pepperdine and Arizona.

Wanting to play a more difficult schedule, Campbell has the team playing ranked teams in most of their non-conference games.

The tough schedule is designed to improve the team’s ranking.

This year the team will also sport some new faces, but the team doesn’t expect to fall off.

Karnaukhova is joined by 61st-ranked Anna Erikson at the two.

The sophomore Erikson has a 4-1 record this season despite suffering a hip flexor injury.

“We’re definitely stronger than last year,” Karnaukhova said. “We have two freshmen and there is so much hope for them. They have a lot of talent.”

Those two freshmen are Klara Petersson, and Anna Karaveyeva.

Petersson has ran her record to 5-0 with wins over Montana State’s Vera Vasileva and Davis’ Kaitlin Callan on Saturday.

Karaveyeva is 3-2.

“I think she’ll get better and better,” said Campbell, “I think she’ll be a very solid player for us once she starts playing more matches.”

Rounding out the line-up is sophomore Cecilia Helland who has a record of 4-1 this year.

The team has set its goal farther then just winning a fourth-straight conference championship.

“Our goal this year is to be a top-25 team in the country and make it to the second round of the NCAA tournament,” Campbell said.

Karnaukhova sets the team goals slightly higher at top 20.

As for the 5-0 junior, she sees herself among the elite players in the country.

“I want to be in the top five in the country,” She said.

Campbell thinks it’s a possibility.

“She has been consistently solid in every match all year long and I think as the season progresses she is a real threat to win the NCAA this year.”