All year the Penn State men's gymnastics team has talked about one thing: championship season.

With the Big Ten Championships starting at 8 tonight and continuing tomorrow at the same time in Iowa City, the No. 6 Nittany Lions (5-2, 1-1 Big Ten) are at the pivotal point of their season.

But one question that surrounds the team -- are they finally ready?

"Yeah we're there, we're ready to go," junior Matt Cohen said. "We did a whole training, a whole cycle, just to get to this point."

With the NCAA Championships in two weeks, Penn State men's gymnastics coach Randy Jepson has been working on getting his squad ready for the two big tournaments.

During this week of practice, Jepson has made some small changes in order to have his team ready for the Big Ten championship atmosphere.

"We've been tapering down a little bit," Cohen said. "Whereas we really did a lot earlier in the season, to where our volume was really high in quantity, now we've been working more on quality in order to let our bodies recover."

By stressing quality over quantity, the Lions should be better rested for the championships.

The Lions have been marred with injuries throughout the year, with the most notable being freshman Casey Sandy missing the rest of the year with an arm injury.

With Sandy out of the lineup, Jepson has had to find others to take his place, something Cohen has seen his teammates enjoy stepping into.

"Our freshmen are really ready to go," Cohen said. "I look at Shaun Antonio as someone who has stepped up."

Two weeks ago against California, Antonio scored his highest mark of the season on the parallel bars with a 9.050.

Cohen also mentioned junior Derek Helsby as someone he sees having a very good weekend.

"Derek has had a great cycle in practice," Cohen said. "He's ready for the competition. The guy is a rock."

In addition, Cohen would like to see himself do well, so he is going into the weekend with a list of goals. Some are for himself but mainly his goals for the team.

"My first personal goal is to be Big Ten champs as a team," Cohen said. "Apart from that, I would like to personally finish top six in the all-around and top three in the rings."

The rest of the Lions have the same lofty goals that they have been looking to all season.

For gymnasts, there is nothing more exciting than championships season.

All season, after every event the first topic brought up is that the warmup, practice or meet brings them one step closer to the team championships.

For Cohen and the rest of the Lions, they know if they are going to fulfill their potential now would be the time.

"We've had some ups-and-downs in the middle of it," Cohen said. "But now we are ready to do really well this weekend and to peak at the NCAAs."