Hornet fans filled the stands for a head to head meet between Sacramento State and its rival San Jose State gymnastics programs on Friday night. These two programs have developed a bit of bad blood over the years as old conference rivals. The higher ranked Spartans were looking for justification of their higher national ranking after Sac State beat them by less than one point at the Stanford quadrangle meet on Jan. 15.

The Hornets opened the night with their strongest showing on vault this season. All six competitors were above 9.60. Four-year senior Trista Condren, who was stepping in for the sophomore Amber Basgall who suffered a shoulder injury, led the team in the event with a 9.80 while sophomore Shina Cordeno of San Jose edged out the event with a 9.825.

“With Amber’s shoulder sprain, Trista stepped in big for us tonight,” head coach Kim Hughes. “She’s been struggling on vault and hasn’t done it competitively since her sophomore year.” Friday night was the first time that Condren had vaulted in a competition since Feb. 22, 2004.

During the teams transition from vault to bars Herky, Sac State’s mascot, had a small confrontation with Hava McCarter-Ribakoff of the gymnastics team. The two began a break-dance battle. According to on-looking Hornets fans McCarter-Ribakoff beat the Hornet mascot in the battle of fancy footwork.

After two events led the 34th-ranked Spartans by nine-tenths of a point, 97.075-96.150. The Hornets headed into their strongest event and the event that often makes or breaks the team in close meets.

The four inch wide piece of wood, the beam, seemed unfavorable to the Hornets as two gymnasts recorded falls during their routines. Sophomore Melissa Genovese was the sixth Hornet on the event and recorded the top score for the team with a 9.750. When the Spartans wrapped up their floor routine the teams were tied in a dead heat with scores of 145.00 each.

While the Hornets were forced to count a fall on the beam event, San Jose State was posting solid scores on the apparatus. All five scores that were counted were above a 9.600. Sophomore Spartan Lead Bigelow won the event with a 9.825. Sac State finished the night on their strongest event, the floor and didn’t let down.

As a team the Hornets pushed past San Jose by less than one-tenth of a point with a team score of 48.925. The Spartans were visibly disgruntled to find out at the end of the night their old rivals had won the meet by less than one-half of a point after all events had been tallied. The scores 193.925-193.625 were received with riotous applause from the stands.

“We knew we could pull out a good overall score, everyone knew what they had to do,” four-year senior Kimiye Narasaki said. Narasaki recorded a score of 9.725 on the vault, floor and bars.

“They’re our biggest rival, so we always want to beat them,” Carrie Kinghorn said, also a four-year senior with the Sac State gymnastics program.

This Friday the Hornets will travel to Utah State to take on the Aggies. They will return to the Nest on March 12 to host the UC Davis Aggies, and then head to Davis the week after on March 17. These will be the last two meets of the year for the Hornets until the conference championships in Logan, Utah on March 25.

Brad Alexander can be reached at [email protected]