The Sacramento State gymnastics team got “a little revenge” Friday night against conference rival San Jose State, according to coach Kim Hughes.

The Hornets also recorded their highest score of the season, 193.200, which helps the team in the chase for an NCAA Regional qualifying score.

A heated rivalry has developed over the years between the Spartans and Sac State. Last season the Spartans edged out a Mountain Pacific Sports Federation title over the Hornets by little over a hundredth of a point in San Jose.

After a bitter loss to San Jose State in Spartan Gym Feb. 4, the Hornets handed the Spartans their first loss of the season this time around.

“Finally,” Hughes said, “we’ve always been able to, but tonight we finally did it.

“Across the nation this is a good score.”

Both Hughes and assistant Tamara Ross were all smiles after seeing the final score.

Friday night, unlike the previous meet where the team had to count four falls, on both beam and floor, into their final score, the only fall the team had through all four events was thrown out in the final tally.

“I’m very very happy with the girls tonight,” Hughes said. “We really stepped up.”

The weak points of the team, bars and beam, did not seem to be a factor against the Spartans in the Hornets Nest.

Freshman Melissa Genovese had the highest score of the night with a first place finish on her strongest event, the beam, scoring 9.875.

All this after Genovese hyper extended her elbow in December.

“We did awesome,” Genovese said. “We really pulled together tonight.”

The surprise of the meet was freshman Nicole Giao who supported the team in three events, scoring a career best on the beam and floor with scores of 9.625 and 9.675, respectively.

The Hornets also took the top three spots in uneven bars in their second rotation. Freshman Alexis Tsurumoto won the event with a score of 9.850, tying her career high.

With matching scores of 48.475 on bars, beam and floor and 47.775 on vault the resulting final score of 193.200 will have to be thrown out for regional scoring purposes. Each team has to drop their highest scoring meet and average their next top five scores.

The Hornets will maintain their seventh place ranking in the Western Regional ranking, and 43rd in the nation.

Seniors Stephanie Aeder and Nirvana Zaher won first and second on the floor with scores of 9.775 and 9.725, respectively.

The next home meet will be Feb. 25 against Alaska Anchorage’s Seawolves and UC Davis.

Notes:

In the all around competition the San Jose team won the top three spots, led by star sophomore Greta Leach with a score of 38.750 … This year the battle will end in a tie between these two talented schools, until the conference title meet on March 25 … The Hornets are still undefeated at home with a record of 3-0 and 4-6 for the season … On Feb. 11, Sac State gymnastics face the UC Davis Aggies, who are last place in the region.