By Zach Babajanof-Rustrian | Sports Writer
Baylor’s top-ranked acrobatics and tumbling team is set for its season-opening meet against Texas Lutheran on Saturday in the Memorial Gym in Seguin.
The Bears are hunting for their ninth-straight NCATA National Championship in 2024. Head coach Felecia Mulkey said the goal is to always “peak at the right time.”
“The team you see out there on Saturday will not be the same team you see at the end of the year,” Mulkey said. “This is the most talented team we’ve had at Baylor in quite some time. But we’re young, but they’re making progress.”
The team has a lot of freshmen this year, so the focus in practices has been on learning the basics, Mulkey said.
“We have a lot of freshmen that have never competed in acrobatics and tumbling meets, because they may have come from a different discipline,” Mulkey said. “They may have been in artistic gymnastics or acrobatics gymnastics. The actual way we compete is different.
“So we’ve been familiarizing with them how we compete, what comes first, what comes next, kind of the flow of it. So they’ll know how to prep and warm up on that day.”
Last season, Baylor swept the NCATA major awards, as Kamryn Kitchens (Most Outstanding Athlete of the Year), junior top Jordan Gruendler (Specialist of the Year) and sophomore base Gianna Cameron (Freshman of the Year) all brought in honors.
In a preseason poll, coaches voted Baylor as the favorite for the 2024 season. However, the Bears weren’t the unanimous favorite.
“I think what I was more excited about [other than] our No. 1 ranking is that we didn’t get all but one of the votes,” Mulkey said. “That to me says the sport is growing.”
As the director of expansion for the NCATA, Mulkey has played a substantial role in helping the sport grow.
“We’ve already established and achieved an NCAA emerging sport status,” Mulkey said. “We should kick-start legislation for that after the 2024 season. And then our first NCAA championship would be in 2026.”
As the Bears prepare for the Bobcats, Mulkey said they’re taking practice one day at a time.
“Every day, start over again,” Mulkey said. “Our goal is just to do the best we can every meet. It’s interesting. Our sport, it’s really just us against us. It’s so much pressure going out there. We try to win the day — day by day, win the day.”
Baylor will face Texas Lutheran at 3 p.m. on Saturday in Seguin.
