By Lindsey Boyd (@lindsboyd3 ):
San Jose State gymnasts put their 2016-17 championship rings where their mouths are and defended their Mountain Pacific Sports Federation title.
No team in SJSU athletic history has won a conference title consecutively since women’s soccer in 2009 and 2010 until now. Tallying a 195.975, gymnastics scored its highest record in school history and second highest MPSF championship to bring home the trophy.
SJSU beat second-place UC Davis by a smacking .750 of a point — a big improvement from the Spartans’ narrow 0.200 win against the Aggies last season in the championship.
Senior Kaitlin Won stole the show with the tenth-best all-around score in MPSF championship history. Tying her career-best 39.225, she took home a first place title in the all-around.
Also claiming a first-place title was sophomore Chelsea Andrada. Her 9.875 performance on the vault shot her previous career-best 9.775 out of the water and catapulted the Spartans to a first-place team finish in the event.
But the records didn’t stop there. The beam team broke the MPSF all-time and championship record itself with a 49.275. Led by Won and junior Stephanie Relova who scored 9.875 a piece, the team easily took first overall.
Although sophomore Taylor Chan scored a high 9.900 on the floor, she fell second to UC Davis’s Alexis Brown by 0.025. Relova also almost secured a first-place title for the team on the uneven bars but was a few marks shy of Air Force’s Anna Salamone.
As a team, the Spartans took second on the bars and third on the floor. The Spartans only competed with five gymnasts instead of six because of injuries on the floor.
Following behind SJSU’s first place championship finish was UC Davis (195.200), Air Force (194.975), Sacramento State (194.775), Seattle Pacific University (194.300) and University of Alaska Anchorage (192.200).