By Marissa Essenburg | Sports Writer
It’s been over 4,370 days since Baylor acrobatics and tumbling left championship weekend without the crown. The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge was sweeping the nation, Musical.ly, now known as TikTok, had just launched and the freshmen on this year’s roster were still mastering recess politics in grade school.
More than a decade later, No. 1 Baylor heads to Azusa, Calif., chasing its 11th consecutive NCATA title and another layer of hardware for a dynasty that has redefined the sport’s standard. With championship weekend now here, the Bears are set to make one final run at the crown before transitioning into a new era.
“This is the big one,” junior top and tumbler Payton Washington said. “This is what we’ve been waiting for, and we just can’t wait to unleash all that we’ve been doing.”
With eight teams competing in a single-elimination tournament, Baylor’s pursuit begins at 9 p.m. Thursday against No. 8 seed Duquesne (3-3), a team the Bears (9-0) defeated by a 23.27-point margin in March.
Should the Bears advance, they would face the winner of No. 4 Fairmont State and No. 5 Augustana in Friday’s semifinal before a potential national championship rematch at 7 p.m. Saturday against the winner from the other side of the bracket, with No. 2 Oregon looming as the most likely contender.
With little margin for error in a three-day, single-elimination format, Baylor’s preparation has centered less on overhaul and more on refinement.
“Sometimes this time of year, we’re changing a lot of things in preparation,” head coach Felecia Mulkey said. “This year, we left a lot of things the same. We did make a few changes, a few tweaks, and mostly just fine-tuning because we still have some room to improve.”
That same approach has defined how the defending champions have handled the final stretch of the season. Rather than piling on more volume, the Bears have leaned into efficiency, trusting the foundation already in place and believing the biggest gains now come from focus, precision and consistency at the right time.
“Each year is different, and every team is different,” Mulkey said. “This year, we’ve gotten to a point where we haven’t had less practice, we’ve had shorter, more productive practices, really coming in and being able to force our focus because I think down the stretch this next week in the championship, that’s going to be the biggest key.”
In a season where meets are often separated by at least a week, Baylor now faces a different kind of challenge: three opponents in three days from Thursday through Saturday.
But competing on three consecutive days is nothing new for the Bears, who, thanks to their head coach, have grown accustomed to the grind all season.
“Not only are they talented, but they outwork everyone in the country, and that sets them apart,” Mulkey said. “We’ve been prepping for it all year. We did it by design, made a lot of in-and-out trips at the beginning of February and really wore ourselves out that month. I did that on purpose.”
That depth — both physically and across the roster — remains one of Baylor’s many defining advantages.
“We were really deep last year. We’re deeper and better,” Mulkey said. “You may see a team do one of something; we do four of something.”
Still, inside the locker room, the message remains the same one repeated at the start of every new season.
“This team hasn’t won anything yet,” senior base and tumbler Meredith Wells said. “We’ve had a really great season and we’re just hoping to keep that moving forward.”
Now with its final NCATA championship chase ahead, Baylor will open the tournament with a quarterfinal meet against Duquesne at 9 p.m. Thursday. All meets will be streamed on ESPN+.
