SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Sacramento State head women's basketball coach Aaron Kallhoff announced Thursday the commitments of seven standout student-athletes who have chosen to continue their academic and athletic careers with the Hornets beginning with the upcoming 2026-27 campaign.

The group consists of six Division I transfers and one true freshman who will help usher in Sacramento State's debut in the Big West Conference after the program spent the last 30 years as a member of the Big Sky Conference. This year's Hornet transfer class is ranked in the top 10 among mid-major schools according to the website On3.com.

"We feel great about the incoming class that we have coming in," Kallhoff said. "It's a versatile group that fills the needs we had. We are excited to get to work."

The incoming group includes three Big 12 Conference transfers in Arizona's Achol Magot and the Kansas State duo of Alexis Hess and Jenessa Cotton, one from the Missouri Valley in Evansville's Jelena Savic, one from The American in Memphis' Brooklyn Charlo, and one from the Northeast Conference in Long Island's Koko Akridge. Those six players join Oregon native Jordan Barlow, who recently graduated from South Medford HS.

Two of the transfers are "coming home" to California as Akridge (San Diego, Calif.) and Cotton (Orange, Calif.) return to their home state, while Pennsylvania (Hess), Arizona (Magot), and Colorado (Charlo) are also represented. Savic, a native of Melbourne, Australia, is the lone international player among the signees.

There are also family ties as Achol comes to Sacramento State to join her cousin, current Hornet Ajong Lual.

Brief bios on the incoming class, in alphabetical order, are below.

Sacramento State is coming off a 2025-26 campaign that saw the Hornets finish 15-18 overall and 8-10 in its final Big Sky Conference season, advancing to the semifinals of the conference tournament for only the fifth time in school history after finishing fifth in the league regular season standings.

The 15 wins matched the win total from the 2024-25 campaign and gave Sacramento State back-to-back seasons with 15-or-more wins for the first time in a decade since the 2013-14 (18-12) and 2014-15 (18-16) teams accomplished the feat. The Hornets finished with double-digit wins for the fourth time in the last five seasons after doing so just twice in the five years before that.

SACRAMENTO STATE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL 2026-27 INCOMING CLASS
KOKO AKRIDGE (5-8, G, San Diego, Calif., Mater Dei HS / Long Island University)
• Spent her first two collegiate seasons (2023-25) at Alabama State before transferring to Long Island University for the 2025-26 campaign
• Started 22 of 32 games for the Sharks last season, averaging 9.4 points and 2.1 rebounds and leading the team in assists (3.1 apg)
• Ranked third on the team in scoring, fourth in the Northeast Conference in assists, ninth in the conference with a .344 three-point percentage, and sixth in three-pointers per game (2.03)
• Led the NEC with a 1.87 assist-to-turnover ratio
• Also finished second on the team with 40 steals
• Finished with double-digit points 13 times, including a season-high 23 against Dayton and Le Moyne
• Prepped at Mater Dei HS in Chula Vista, Calif., where she averaged 20.7 points, 2.9 assists, and 4.4 rebounds per game as a senior
• Helped the Crusaders to a CIF San Diego Section Division I title as a senior en route to CIF second-team, and all-league first team honors

JORDAN BARLOW (5-10, G, Medford, Ore., South Medford HS)
• 2026 Southwest Conference Defensive Player of the Year and first-team all-conference selection as a senior
• Second-team All-State selection for the Southwest Conference champions
• Helped the Panthers to a Oregon Class 6A state title as a sophomore and was an all-conference selection
• Team was a four-time state qualifier during her prep career
• Second-team all-conference selection as a junior

BROOKLYN CHARLO (6-0, G, Thornton, Colo., IMG Academy / Memphis)
• Spent the 2025-26 season at Memphis, appearing in 26 games and making five starts
• Averaged 2.1 points in 9.2 minutes per game
• Scored a season-high 15 points in 22 minutes against Rust College
• Played senior prep year at IMG Academy, where she helped win the 2025 Chipotle High School Nationals Championship
• Named MVP of the national championship game behind 13 points in the fourth quarter and overtime
• Rated a four-star recruit and top-150 prospect by Prospects Nation
• Averaged 12.9 points, 4.5 rebounds and 4.0 assists per game in her junior season at Riverdale Ridge High School in Colorado, winning the school's first-ever 4A state championship
• Her father played college basketball at Nevada and is now an assistant coach for the South Bay Lakers in the NBA G League following a professional career that included stops in the G League at home and abroad in France, Belgium, Mexico, Japan, and the Philippines 

JENESSA COTTON (6-2, F, Orange, Calif., Mater Dei HS / Kansas State)
• Wrapped up her sophomore season at Kansas State in 2025-26 after playing her true freshman year at Duke (2024-25)
• Started 16 of her 24 appearances with the Wildcats, averaging 4.3 points and 3.4 rebounds per game while shooting .422 from the field in just under 15 minutes per contest
• Appeared in only eight games and 44 minutes with the Blue Devils as a freshman, gathering eight points and six rebounds
• Made her collegiate debut, ironically, against Kansas State while at Duke
• Ranked 80th in the nation in the ESPNW Top 100 and was a four-star prospect by Prospects Nation out of Mater Dei HS in Santa Ana, Calif.
• Was the 2024 Orange County Register Player of the Year and Trinity League MVP with the Monarchs after averaging 17.9 points, 8.1 rebounds and 1.9 steals as a senior while also earning a McDonald's All-America nomination
• Two-time CIF All-Trinity League First Team selection in 2023-24 as well as being named to the 2023 Cal-Hi Sports All-State Second Team, the 2023 Orange County Register Girls Basketball First Team, and the 2023 All-CIF Southern Section Open Division First Team
• Also won a Nike EYBL National Championship in 2023 with her Cal Sparks travel team

ALEXIS HESS (6-1, F, Blandon, Pa., Fleetwood Area HS / Kansas State)
• Spent the last three years at Kansas State, sitting out her first two years due to injury before appearing in four games in 2025-26
• Made her collegiate debut against Cincinnati and logged her first points with a three-pointer at Kansas
• Prepped at Fleetwood Area HS in Pennsylvania where she was a 2023 McDonald's All-America nominee
• Named to the Pennsylvania Class 5A All-State first team in 2022 and the third team in 2021
• Was a four-time Pennsylvania Class 5A All-County first-team selection, finishing with 1,403 career points
• Averaged 17.6 points, 9.2 rebounds, and 2.9 assists per game as a senior

ACHOL MAGOT (6-7, C, Tucson, Ariz., Salpointe Catholic HS / Arizona)
• Appeared in 19 games as a reserve at Arizona in 2025-26 after spending the previous two years at Texas Tech
• Averaged 3.5 points and 1.3 rebounds in six minutes per game with the Wildcats, shooting .609 from the field and finishing with a season-high 12 points in 16 minutes against TCU
• Following a redshirt year in 2023-24 with the Red Raiders, she appeared in nine games off the bench for Texas Tech, helping her team to the quarterfinal round of both the Big 12 Tournament and the Women's Basketball Invitational Tournament
• Born in South Sudan

JELENA SAVIC (5-11, G/F, Melbourne, Australia, Kurunjang Secondary College / Evansville)
• Appeared in 35 games for the Purple Aces, averaging 18.5 minutes per contest as a freshman in 2025-26
• Averaged 5.2 points and 3.1 rebounds per game, shooting .399 from the field overall and 37 percent from three-point range
• Finished with double-digit points five times, scoring a season-high 14 points three times against Illinois State (1/11), Illinois-Chicago (2/7), and Northern Iowa (2/21) — playing a season-high 32 minutes in the latter
• Before coming to the United States, competed for the the Keilor Thunder in the Victorian Youth League, helping her team to the league title in 2022
• In 2023, helped the Thunder win the Victorian Championship Reserve for U18 Juniors
• Was the Draža Mihailovic Cup Tournament MVP in 2024 and also earned Bacchus March Lions Country Basketball Team MVP award
• In the Country Basketball League semifinal, she tallied 26 points and 11 rebounds before totaling 12 points and 10 rebounds in the championship game versus Ballarine