GYMNASTICS: Baely Rowe signs with national, Pac-12 powerhouse Utah

The Federal Way resident made it official Wednesday when she inked her national letter of intent to compete for the powerhouse Utah gymnastics team. Wednesday was the first day of the NCAA's early-signing period.

November 16, 2012 1:31 pm
Federal Way's Baely Rowe signed a scholarship to compete on the University of Utah gymnastics team in the fall. Rowe is a senior at Auburn Riverside High School.
Federal Way's Baely Rowe signed a scholarship to compete on the University of Utah gymnastics team in the fall. Rowe is a senior at Auburn Riverside High School.

Baely Rowe is headed to the University of Utah in the fall.

The Federal Way resident made it official Wednesday when she inked her national letter of intent to compete for the powerhouse Utah gymnastics team. Wednesday was the first day of the NCAA’s early-signing period.

Rowe is a two-time Junior Olympic national uneven bar champion and the 2012 Junior Olympic all-around runner-up. She is the only high school senior who signed with the 10-time Division I national champions for their 2013-14 recruiting class. The Utes have no seniors on their current roster.

“Baely is a good, solid all-around gymnast who was heavily recruited by some of the top teams in the country,” said Utah head coach Greg Marsden. “She is capable of contributing on all four events and will bring an entertainment quality to her floor routine that will ignite our fan base.”

Here is a video of Rowe’s performance at the recent Junior Olympics.

Rowe, who attends Auburn Riverside High School, will be the third member of  her family to earn a scholarship to a Pac-12 Conference university. Her older sister, Bree, played soccer at Oregon and her older brother, Kelyn, was the Pac-12 Soccer Player of the Year in 2011 at UCLA. He was also the third-overall pick in last year’s Major League Soccer (MLS) SuperDraft by the New England Revolution and recently completed his rookie season. Both were graduates of Federal Way High School.

“I would watch my brother and sister do classes for fun and then try and mimic what they were doing on the side,” Baely Rowe said about gymnasts. “So my parents decided to put me in gymnastics.”

It has paid off. The University of Utah gymnastics program is the only school to qualify for 37-consecutive NCAA National Championships, including 10 national titles. The Utes have placed in the top-three 22 times and made 18 Super Six appearances, which leads the nation. Utah is also the only school in the country to make the Super Six every year since 2000.

Rowe will also be competing in front of the biggest crowds in college gymnastics. Utah holds every gymnastics attendance record, averaging more than 11,000 fans at home meets for the past 21 years. That number has risen to almost 14,000 for the past four years. Last year, Utah set an NCAA gymnastics attendance record by averaging 14,352 fans.

Rowe has four top-10 all-around finishes at the Junior Olympics Nationals, placing third in 2009, ninth in 2010, seventh in 2011 and second in 2012. She won the Junior Olympics uneven bar title in 2010 and 2012, placed second on bars and floor in 2009 (when she made the Junior Olympics National Team) and was fourth on vault in 2011.

Rowe won all four events and the all-around at the 2011 regionals and won vault, bars, floor and the all-around at the 2009 regionals. She finished seventh in the all-around at the 2012 Nastia Luikin Cup. She won vault and took fifth all-around at the 2009 U.S. Challenge.

Rowe currently trains at Auburn Gymnastics Center for coaches Brent Phelps and Peter Flores. She is the daughter of Sherri Kruzner-Rowe and Scott Rowe.