The Sacramento State men’s tennis team will host the Big Sky Championship at Gold River Racquet Club at the end of the month. As the No. 1 seed, Sac State will automatically advance to the conference semifinals.

“Obviously, I would like to play a weaker team in the semifinals, but if we want to win the tournament, we need to beat whoever we play,” senior Ramon Perez said.

The team is not going to change much in practice, Perez said. The team wants to keep the same intensity and regain the rhythm it had in the Big Sky regular season.

Freshman standout Anton Stryhas said that the team is also going to use practice to recover.

The team feels confident, but knows that the teams it faced are going to be motivated.

Eastern Washington, Montana and Northern Arizona have all improved since the Hornets first faced them.

Eastern Washington finished second in the Big Sky regular season. In the first conference match for both teams, Sac State beat Eastern Washington 6-1.

The Hornets’ No. 1 singles player, Xavier Barajas-Smith, said they played against them in Washington and beat them on their own courts.

“Hopefully we can do the same on our home courts,” Barajas-Smith said. Sac State had its closest conference match against Northern Arizona. Sac State won 5-2, winning easily in the doubles and top three singles. However, in the last three singles, all of the matches went three sets with only Sac State’s No. 5 Perez winning.

Stryhas said he does not think it will matter if the opponents switch their doubles rotation because Sac State has three good doubles teams.

Coach Slava Konikov and assistant coach Kevin Kurtz were thrilled with the team’s success in doubles. Sac State was 19-2 in conference with only one loss with its current No. 2 doubles team of Barajas-Smith and Hague Van Dillen at Weber State.

Gabriel Loredo was the only Hornet to sweep his singles and doubles matches against Montana last year. Although Sac State won 6-1 at Montana, it was knocked out by Montana in the 2006 Big Sky semifinals.

Barajas-Smith started out 7-0 this season before falling at Idaho State. He also lost to Montana State and seeks revenge against both teams if they meet again.

“I would love to play against the guy I lost to in Idaho because I feel that I had a bad day and would normally beat him otherwise,” Barajas-Smith said.

Stryhas has never lost in Big Sky play, but if the team were to play Montana State, he wants to make up for his lackluster performance that ended in a third set super tiebreak.

Not only did the top two Hornets struggle against the three-time Big Sky Champs, Sac State had lost to Montana State four times in a row before this year.

Sac State looks to use this year’s domination as a way to intimidate. Stryhas, Loredo and Perez remain undefeated this year in the Big Sky.

Stryhas is excited about his first Big Sky playoffs.

“It’s really going to show team spirit. We have been thinking about the tourney all season,” Stryhas said.

Seniors Warwick Foy and Perez have played doubles together for four years compiling an impressive 15-4 record including 7-0 against Big Sky competition.

The seniors want to win it for themselves, but also want to use it as a building block for the school. Foy is excited about next year’s team and plans to support them.

Sac State must win the Big Sky Championship in order to advance to the NCAA playoffs. Foy is confident in the team’s chances since it didn’t lose in conference. Sac State will have to duplicate its success if it want to win its first Big Sky Championship since 2003.

The undefeated Big Sky champs will host the conference tournament April 27-29 at Gold River Racquet Club.

Tyrone Bowman can be reached at [email protected]