One step away from the NCAA Women’s Gymnastics National Championships, the ISU gymnastics team believes it is reaching its peak.

Coming off the heels of winning their first Big 12 championship since 2000, the Cyclones are set to take on six of the nation’s best teams in Hilton Coliseum on Saturday night.

No. 4 Iowa State (16-3) plays host to No. 11 Arizona State (14-7), No. 15 Arizona (12-14), No. 19 Denver (18-5), No. 21 Minnesota (15-4) and No. 24 Brigham Young (6-10) during the NCAA Women’s Gymnastics North Central Regional Championship this weekend.

The competition is one of six NCAA regional championships being decided around the country over the weekend. The top two teams at each regional earn a trip to Corvallis, Ore., for the NCAA National Championship on April 20 to 22.

Despite facing tough competition, the Cyclones are confident about their chances of making it to nationals for the second consecutive year. Last year, the Cyclones took fifth place in the second qualifying session at nationals, led by junior Janet Anson’s runner-up performance on vault in the individual championship.

“We’re pretty confident going in because we’re the No. 1 seed in our region and we’re competing at home,” said junior Katie Lasher.

Coach K.J. Kindler added that confidence has been spurring the team on throughout the season.

“Confidence is something that I think we’ve built all season from meet to meet,” she said. “It’s definitely something that you can’t fake and it’s been building over the last four months, so hopefully it’s something they don’t have to think about at this point.”

Kindler said she sees competing in Hilton Coliseum as one of Iowa State’s advantages.

“Being at home is huge,” she said. “We’ve never been home for a regional before, and I can’t tell you what a great advantage it is for us. Certainly, we’re being given an opportunity here and we need to make the most of it.”

Recent history is on Iowa State’s side. The Cyclones have won 17 consecutive home meets dating back to 2003.

Although she feels confident going into the weekend, Kindler has some concerns about the Iowa State’s opponents.

“Arizona State is a team that we lost to earlier in the year and Arizona and Denver are teams that we haven’t seen, so it’s hard to know what the competition level is,” she said.

Arizona State and Minnesota are the only teams competing at the North Central Regional that the Cyclones have faced earlier this season.

Arizona State gave Iowa State its only dual-meet loss of the season by posting a 197.750, which remains the NCAA’s highest single-meet score of the season.

Iowa State handily defeated Big Ten conference champion Minnesota on two separate occasions.

“We have the most difficult region in the country from top to bottom,” Kindler said. “We have six teams in the top 25; no other region has that. So, depth-wise, this region is very, very strong.”

Kindler said she hopes the prospects of great gymnastics, a good ISU team and being the first NCAA Regional competition hosted by the Cyclones will draw a large crowd.

“I’d like to beat our attendance record and go over 3,000,” she said.

“To me, that would be a regional-worthy crowd. I’d like to see some of those Iowa State students coming out because it’s only $5 admission for students.”

Senior Krystal Carney said she is pumped up to compete in this weekend’s meet.

“We’re definitely excited to be hosting regionals,” she said. “With the home crowd, we’ll have a lot of support behind us and it should be fun.”

The NCAA Women’s Gymnastics North Central Regional Championship will begin at 6 p.m. Saturday.