When Alabama junior Kayla Williams took an awkward fall in warmups before the gymnastics team’s season opening meet, the team didn’t have much time to come up with a contingency plan.
There were only a couple of minutes left in the total warmup period, and coach Sarah Patterson had to shuffle her lineup at the last minute, as Williams was slated to go on three events that night.
The Crimson Tide ended up scoring a 197.15, the highest season opening score in school history, but the news wasn’t all good. Williams sustained a partially torn Achilles tendon and will miss the rest of the season.
“I’ve been in this long enough where it can go one of two ways,” said Patterson. “An athlete can be so upset that ‘this year my career is done’ and it’s all about them. Or they turn and lift everybody else up on the team. And that’s what Kayla did.”
While Patterson said the team’s depth will be tested early and often with Williams out, the team is off to a pretty good start.
The Crimson Tide used three freshmen on six routines Friday, including four routines for freshman Katie Bailey, who posted the highest all-around score of any freshman in the country.
“I could feel myself start to break down a little bit [when Willams went down],” Bailey said. “But my team did a great job of just coming to me and being like, ‘Katie it’s going to be fine, don’t worry about Kayla. We’re going to do this for Kayla.’”
The “do it for Kayla” mentality may turn into the theme for the season, as Williams will be limited to watching meets from the sideline this year.
Alabama will face Kentucky and Nebraska on Saturday in Knoxville, Tenn.
“It’ll be really tough,” Diandra Milliner said. “But she will still be around as a vocal leader and there to support the team. We want to show her that we can do what we practiced all fall and do it for her.”
The Crimson Tide will have to move on without Williams on the floor, though, and Saturday will be the start of that process.
“Kayla was in the best shape of her career, she is one of the hardest workers, she did everything that she could do,” Patterson said. “I really feel like you have to control the things that you can control. Because it’s sports. And sometimes something like that is going to happen.”
