The No. 62-ranked Hornets finished with a 6-0 conference record and are heavily favored to repeat as champions.

Senior Margarita Karnaukhova is a veteran of postseason play, winning every Big Sky Tournament match she’s played in three seasons. The three-time and reigning Big Sky MVP has confidence in her team’s chances this year, despite the relative inexperience of this season’s squad.

“There should be no problem, really. Everybody who’s in our conference we’ve beat. I’m not worried,” Karnaukhova said.A tournament victory would earn Sacramento State an automatic berth in the NCAA tournament, which begins May 12. With six of the team’s eight players being freshman, coach Bill Campbell and Karnaukhova said they wondered if the team is fully aware of what is at stake.

“I don’t think they know that if they don’t win (the Big Sky Championship), we won’t make it to the NCAA,” Campbell said. “There’s so many freshman, they haven’t been through this before.”

“I don’t think they really understand what it is yet, like it’s going to be another dual match, not the tournament,” Karnaukhova said. ” They don’t know that we used to struggle to win the conference.”

Northern Arizona finished 4-2 in conference and gave the team their toughest conference fight this season, losing 5-2.

The two points were the first given up to a conference foe by the Hornets since Jan. 24, 2003, when, coincidentally, the team beat Northern Arizona 5-2.

Northern Arizona’s first-year head coach Kim Bruno knows her team faces an uphill battle at the tournament, but struck an optimistic tone when discussing her team’s chances for a championship.

“Everyone knows that Sac State is very good. For the last four years, (the Hornets) basically dominated,” Bruno said. “We really have nothing to lose. Sometimes it’s easier to play really well when you’re not the favorites.”

Having won the tournament four consecutive years and picked to win it again this year, it would be easy for the Hornets to look past the conference tournament to the NCAA, where they would be striving to advance past the first round for the first time in school history.

Campbell is doing everything he can to prevent that.

“I want to keep them focused,” he said, “I don’t like to even talk about the finals; the emphasis will be on the first match of the tourney.

“No one said they were going to give us the trophy.”

Josh Terrell can be reached at [email protected]