All season long, the women's gymnastics team has lived by the refrain of "Begin the Dynasty."

The dynasty begins now, as the No. 9 Lady Lions (11-5) delve into the postseason.

This weekend, the opportunity to live up to that slogan presents itself at the team's first-ever Big Ten Championships in East Lansing, Mich. -- the campus of Michigan State University.

"That's one of our goals -- begin the dynasty (at Big Tens)," freshman Karen Cimochowski said.

The Big Ten Championships will give the Lady Lions the opportunity to win their 10th consecutive conference championship -- Penn State never lost an Atlantic 10 title in nine years of membership.

"We said, 'Let's go there and begin the Penn State dynasty in the Big Ten,' " Coach Judi Avener said.

The Lady Lions are the overwhelming favorites in the seven-team field, but are refusing to look past any team. Penn State is averaging a 191.18 overall and a 191.94 in its region.

Penn State was 2-0 against Big Ten teams during the dual meet season. On Feb. 15, the Lady Lions defeated Ohio State in Rec Hall, 193-189.6. The next weekend, Penn State traveled to Minneapolis and defeated Minnesota, 191.1-187.9.

During the trip to Minnesota, the Lady Lions had a chance to visit the Saint Paul Civic Center -- where the NCAA Championships will be held on April 24-25. While inside, the team vowed to return to the arena and make its mark.

"(Seeing the arena) made it tangible," senior tri-captain Janice Rogers said. "It wasn't just talking about it."

Last weekend, the Lady Lions' most successful dual meet season in recent years came to an end with a school-record 194.75 score in a quadrangular meet with Massachussetts, West Virginia and New Hampshire at Rec Hall.

"It's been a long and short season," said senior tri-captain Jada Hiltabrand. "It's going to be nice going into the Big Tens coming off a good win like we did this past weekend."

Now Penn State has to prove that last week's score was not a fluke.

"One of the reasons I was so happy (after the meet) was that I knew that we could do it again," freshman Tracy Kerner said. "It wasn't like a surprise and our vaulting lineup was super."

The return of Cimochowski and the sophomore class of April Polito and Coby Silver to the vault lineup helped boost Penn State to a school-record 48.5 on the event.

"With Coby and April and I in the vault lineup it made a difference . . . because we had a good starting event," Cimochowski said. "We weren't down after going on vault . . . and I think that momentum just carried us through the meet."