Sacramento State (26-8) will face 15th-ranked Santa Clara (23-4) in the first round of the tournament on Friday, Dec. 2, at 5 p.m. in Stanford, Calif. Host and fifth-ranked Stanford (25-5) will take on Nevada (18-12) in the other first-round matchup on Friday at 7 p.m. The winners of those two matches will face each other in the second round on Saturday, Dec. 3, at 7 p.m. All matches will take place at Maples Pavilion. The Hornets open tournament play at Stanford for the third time in the last four years (2002-03, 2005).

Sacramento State faced Santa Clara in the first round of the 2000 NCAA Tournament (in San Jose, Calif.) and lost, 3-0. Earlier this season, Santa Clara dealt the Hornets their only home loss of the season on Aug. 30. However, the loss to Santa Clara occurred when the Hornets were in the midst of some early-season struggles that saw the team begin the year with a 1-5 record. Since that time, Sacramento State has won 25 of its last 28 matches, including a Div. I record-tying 16-match winning streak that was snapped yesterday by 20th-ranked Ohio.

The Hornets have not left the Bay Area for the first round of the NCAA Tournament since 1999 when the team played in Los Angeles. Since that time, Sacramento State has played its first-round matches in San Jose (2000), Stanford (2002-03) and Berkeley (2004).

Santa Clara won 22 of its first 23 matches of the season, but have fallen on hard times over the past two weeks. The Broncos, who have been ranked nationally nearly the entire season, have lost three of their last four matches, including defeats to San Diego (3-2), Cal (3-2) and Saint Mary’s (3-1). The Broncos closed their regular season last weekend with a 3-1 home victory over San Francisco.

Santa Clara has defeated the Hornets each of the last seven meetings between the two teams and leads the all-time series, 13-10. The Hornets’ last victory over the Broncos came at home in 1998 (3-1).

Winners of 16 of its last 17, 20 of the last 22, and 25 of the last 28, Sacramento State enters the tournament with its most wins (26) since the 1998 squad went 26-9. The Hornets, who have won either the Big Sky Tournament and/or regular-season championship each of the last nine years, defeated Eastern Washington in this season’s conference tournament final. Sacramento State, which also won this year’s Big Sky’s regular-season title with a 13-1 record, has won six Big Sky regular-season championships (1997-01, 2005) and seven Big Sky Tournament championships (1997-98, 2000, 2002-05).

The Hornets made their first appearance in the NCAA Div. I Tournament in 1997 when it lost to Pacific, 3-1, in the first round at the University of Washington. In 1998, the Hornets defeated Houston, 3-0, in the first round before dropping their second-round match to host Pacific, 3-0. In 1999, the Hornets lost their first-round match to Minnesota, 3-0, in Los Angeles on the USC campus. The 2000 team lost in the first round to host Santa Clara, 3-0, in San Jose, Calif. Sacramento State fell to host Stanford, 3-0, in the first round of both the 2002 and 2003 tournaments. Last season, after winning the first game of the match, Sacramento State fell to Saint Mary’s, 3-1, in Berkeley, Calif. The only time that the Hornets have not appeared in the NCAA Tournament over the last nine years was during the 2001 season.

The Hornets are the only team from the Big Sky Conference to make this year’s NCAA Tournament. Sacramento State faced a total of eight opponents that made the NCAA Tournament this season, posting a 3-5 record against those teams. That included victories over Loyola Marymount, Nevada and Long Island, and losses to Duke, San Diego, Long Beach State, Ohio and Santa Clara.