Kennedi Edney said she blacked out for most of the meet. 
She didn’t know that sophomore Christina Desiderio fell off the beam or stepped out of bounds on floor or even that she hit another national championship-winning vault.
None of that mattered to her as she came out and hit routine after routine in Friday’s semifinal. 
“That’s Kennedi,” said senior all-arounder McKenna Kelley. “When the lights come out and it’s time, Kennedi shows up. Kennedi is a competitor and she’s so reliable. She stays loose, she doesn’t get tense and she’s a huge asset to us.”
Edney’s 9.95 vault was enough to win her another individual national championship.
“It was beautiful and stretched out and she drilled it,” coach D-D Breaux said. 
“I wasn’t thinking at all, I’ll tell you that,” Edney said. “I don’t even know what I was thinking. I was thinking let’s go and do this and that’s it.”
Edney also went 39.600 in the all-around with a 9.8125 on bars, 9.9125 on floor and 9.925 on bars. 
This week wasn’t always smooth sailing for the junior all-arounder, though. 
Breaux, teammate Lexie Priessman and Edney herself all admit that Edney had a less that stellar podium practice on Thursday, and her warmups were not much better. 
“She’s a gamer,” Breaux said. “She came out and competed. Warmups don’t matter. We have some depth on floor, and I was really thinking maybe I need to go with Sarah Edwards or Julianna’s ready to go. She got her act together, though.”
Once again, Edney was unaffected by any of those outside distractions, even with the distractions created by herself.
“That’s Kennedi for you,” Priessman said. “She’s a competitor. In warmups, she may have had a few things here and there, but when it comes to competition time, she’s there and she dialed in.”
Edney said that’s what the practice day is for, and it was good for her to come out and get adjusted to the equipment. 
But she knows how to do her vault and she knows how to do the routines. It’s automatic for her and she went into autopilot today.  
“Kennedi Edney wins the prize for the absolute worst warmup in collegiate gymnastics,” Breaux said. “We were ready to put her in a box. But she came through once she got the wake up call. It was noon and the bell went off and she competed great.”