Senior, Kennedy Baker, a gymnast at the University of Florida, came to the end of her gymnastics career when she recently tore her Achilles during her floor routine at the teams home meet against the Arkansas Razorbacks.
The Florida fans were extremely quiet as all of their eyes were focused on Baker as she sat clutching her foot after falling on a pass during her floor routine. Her injury happened at the end of Florida’s sixth straight win over Arkansas 197.725-196.875. During the awards ceremony, the team sat with their faces straight ahead, lost in silence and their thoughts over their teammates injury.
Unfortunately, Baker is done with her gymnastics career. Due to her being a senior, and competing too many times this year, she is not eligible for a fifth year. Baker tweeted out a message to all of her fans the other night…”Hey guys unfortunately my Achilles is torn. I love you all so much… this is not the way that I wanted to end my senior season, but there’s so many I could’ve made it this far without all of your support. Thank you guys for being the best fans in the world.” Baker seemed to be disappointed in how things played out, but she also seemed to be keeping her spirits high.
The team is taking a big hit to their line ups due to the fact that Baker was a major contributor in their, floor, vault and bars line up. Its going to be interesting to see how the team adapts to the loss of Baker. She was a big part of the program and definitely left her legacy at Florida. She was a 11-time All-American(6 NCAA/ 5 NACGC regular season), 2015, 2016, and 2017 All-SEC, three time SEC champion( 2016 all-around, vault:2017 floor exercise), shares Florida exercise record 10.0), and 2015 SEC freshman of the year.
Personally, due to the fact that Florida is a strong team, I think they will be bale to continue to do well even with the loss of Baker. What do you guys think? Do you think Florida will continue to do well even though they are down a team member?