Eagle Star `Sticks' With Gymnastics -- Baker Overcomes Leg Injury To Vie For State Crown

-- FEDERAL WAY

Kelly Baker felt everything click.

She sensed it was her night. Moments before the start of the meet to crown the best high-school gymnast in the state, the Federal Way phenom was at her best. She succeeded on everything she tried.

``I think it was one of the best warmups I'd ever had,'' she reflected this week. ``I stuck everything. I was so excited for the meet to start.''

Then Kelly Baker felt a pop.

For her, the state meet was over before it started. She tore the Achilles' tendon in her left heel.

Instead of leaving a champion, Kelly Baker left on crutches.

``I was so disappointed,'' she said. ``That warmup was so unbelievable. Everything just clicked. I had worked so hard for that, and then in that one moment, it was all gone.''

But Baker, who was third in the state all-around competition as a sophomore with two individual titles and a state record, has another opportunity. She is favored to win the all-around title tomorrow at the state gymnastics meet in the Tacoma Dome Exhibition Hall and could claim any or all of the individual events in Friday's competition, also in the Exhibition Hall.

Baker has staged a remarkable comeback after last year's setback.

``It's a miracle she's back,'' Federal Way Coach Bev McIrvin said. ``We didn't know a year ago if she'd be back in the gym.''

Baker wasn't sure, either, although she didn't realize the

severity of her injury at first.

``It was just kind of scary,'' she said. ``I'd just heard something pop in my body. I didn't know what was going on, but I thought maybe the trainer or someone could tape it up.''

But when a trainer squeezed the back of her calf and saw no movement, the diagnosis was simple. McIrvin, who had seen the same injury in one of her gymnasts the year before, was grief-stricken.

``She was really ready (to perform),'' McIrvin said. ``It was a very upsetting moment, a mind-blower. It was very traumatic.''

A well-liked competitor, Baker drew a lot of sympathy.

``I had a hard time pulling myself together,'' said Kent-Meridian's Lara Kidoguchi, who went on to finish third in the all-around competition and win the balance beam and uneven parallel bars as a sophomore. ``I really look up to her. I respect her a lot.''

Baker was carried off the floor and taken to Overlake Hospital. She had a temporary cast put on so she could return to Sammamish High School and watch the rest of the state meet. She had surgery the following day.

``At first, he (the surgeon) didn't think it was that bad when he looked at it, because it wasn't that swollen,'' Baker said. ``He thought it might just be a little tear. But when he opened it up, it just exploded.''

The surgeon, Kenneth Martin, was very familiar with his patient. Earlier in her gymnastics career, he had twice repaired a cracked right knee and once mended a broken right wrist. Baker attributes much of her recovery to him, noting that her former teammate who suffered a similar injury the year before ``still isn't back to normal.''

But Martin didn't make any promises about Baker's return to gymnastics.

``He said he didn't know, that we'd have to wait and see,'' she said.

Baker spent two months in a cast, then had to wrap the foot and ankle and wear a wooden shoe. Still, she competed in track, switching from the sprints to the shot put and discus. She taped on a temporary cast during competition.

In the fall, Baker ran cross country to strengthen her foot, but it wasn't until the 1989-90 gymnastics season neared that she really tested it. Two weeks before official turnouts began, she returned to the gym.

``It was really hard at first,'' she said. ``It would really tighten up, and I didn't know what was going to happen. But after a few weeks, it kind of went back to normal.''

Baker said she is not concerned about reinjuring it.

``It's the other one (ankle) that gets sore,'' she said with a laugh. ``I worry about that.''

This week, Baker is worrying about whether to throw the same trick that resulted in last year's injury, a double-twisting full flip. She hasn't done one yet this season, but thinks its absence cost her the floor exercise title in the West Central District meet last Saturday. It was the only event Baker didn't win and one she had swept as a sophomore and junior. Saturday, she scored a 9.4. Puyallup's Catherine Williams, whose routine had a slightly higher degree of difficulty, scored a 9.45.

``Last year, I'd done double-fulls, but this year I toned down my tumbling just to keep it safe,'' Baker said. ``But I think I'll do my double-full at state.''

As a sophomore, Baker scored a 9.7 and 9.75 on floor exercise for a state-record total of 19.45. She also won the bars, but a fall on the balance beam cost her a shot at the all-around title.

At last Saturday's district meet, Baker posted a season-best 37.35 all-around to easily outdistance Williams (36.7) and Rogers' Michaelene Myers (36.15). She won the bars (9.45), beam (9.4) and vault (9.1). She said she went into the meet with the same kind of feeling she had before state last year.

Baker's dance and tumbling expertise make her a crowd favorite on floor exercise. One local sports writer recently said he remembers watching her as a sophomore at state. Normally, competition on all events occur simultaneously, but after Baker had scored so well on the floor in the first round, everything stopped when she was announced in the second round. All eyes were on her.

Baker said the same thing happened when she was announced on the balance beam last Saturday.

Even her coach is an appreciative spectator.

``She's a beautiful dancer, and she really sells her routine,'' McIrvin said. ``She presents it better than almost anyone I've ever seen. . . . You just get wrapped up in watching her.''

Baker, who scores as well in the classroom (3.88 grade-point average) as she does in the gym, loves the attention. As a child, Baker was very active and someone suggested her mother sign her up for tumbling. She took a ballet, tap and tumbling class and loved it - ``especially when we had parents night and everyone would clap.''

She joined the Puget Sound School of Gymnastics at age 7 and soon began having Olympic visions, making the U.S. Children's team and later the U.S. Junior team, which she said included only the top seven or eight gymnasts in the country.

Baker seemingly had it all. Except friends. After her eighth-grade year, she quit the sport.

``I was just getting tired of it,'' she said. ``I wasn't able to be with friends at all and I didn't have many friends. I just wanted to take a break and get involved in school. Even though I'd been there for three years, people in school didn't even know who I was.''

Baker didn't compete in ninth grade, although she helped coach, and didn't plan to turn out as a sophomore at Federal Way High School. But her track coach told her it would be good conditioning for spring. A friend, who also had quit club gymnastics and was on the high-school team, helped convince her.

McIrvin, who first saw Baker as a 5-year-old at one of her gymnastics camp, eagerly welcomed her.

``Her friend told her she ought to come out and do gymnastics for the fun of it without the pressure,'' McIrvin said. ``We didn't care what she did (scoring), we just wanted her to come out and be part of the team, just because she's a neat kid.''

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Gymnastics

-- WHAT: State girls' gymnastics meet.

-- WHEN: Tomorrow (team and all-around competition), 4 p.m. Saturday (individual events), 7 p.m.

-- WHERE: Tacoma Dome Exhibition Hall.

-- TICKETS: Adults $4.50; students and senior citizens $3.50.