The 2014 NCAA Regionals will be a gauntlet for the ISU gymnastics team. After getting hot late in the regular season, the Cyclones are looking to ride a wave of momentum into the post-season.

They’d better wax their boards — it’ll be a tough ride.

No region looks particularly easy on paper — after all, every team falls within the nation’s top 36. To keep the season alive and advance to nationals, a team must finish in the top two of its six-team region.

Iowa State’s challenge is to finish in the top two at a region that contains four ranked teams in No. 3 LSU, No. 10 Stanford, No. 13 Auburn and No. 21 Arizona.

“I know LSU is great, I really feel that they are the best they’ve ever been,” said ISU coach Jay Ronayne. “I know everyone else also has some high quality gymnastics and they will be bringing it.”

Though the field will be challenging, senior Michelle Shealy said the Cyclones’ region does have its perks.

“We’ve never been to LSU, so we’re really excited. We’ve been wanting to go somewhere warm and it’s down south which is really nice,” Shealy said with a huge grin. “I’m just excited to be in that atmosphere.”

With the region’s top team having a home-gym advantage, an ISU victory would be a huge up-set. Junior Caitlin Brown said that in order to help pull that off, she’s shifting her focus from her placement to simply performing.

“I just want to go down there and hit my routines, hit them exactly like I do in the gym every single day,” Brown said. “If I know that I did everything in my power to do the routines that I know I can do, then I can’t leave not happy about that.”

That attitude of controlling what they can and letting the rest work itself out is what Ronayne and his coaching staff have been preaching in practice.

“Knowing that we come off the Big 12 Championship with confidence and that we’re in pretty good physical shape right now, we give ourselves a shot,” Ronayne said. “We’ve just got to go out and do our very best and let the judges figure out who really is the best.”

Iowa State will enter regionals with a bit of an advantage in knowing how it stacks up against the nation’s elite. The Cyclones have squared off with top-15 opponents six times this year, including a meet at then-No. 1 Oklahoma in January.

Those six teams, though, all came in six separate meets. Facing four top-25 teams at once will be a whole new animal.

Shealy said that task doesn’t intimidate her, but instead she sees it as an opportunity to shock the gymnastics world.

“I think there’s no stopping us … our confidence is way up there,” Shealy said. “If we go out there and do our best, I’m all for it. This is going to be awesome.”