STANFORD, Calif. — 2005, Oklahoma. 2006, Oklahoma again. 2007, Penn State.

The NCAA champions of 2008? By Friday night, the country will know who is the best men’s gymnastics team in the nation. The No. 1 Stanford men say the title is theirs for the taking.

"If we do what we’ve been training," said senior Chris Harper, "no one can touch us."

The rest of the team’s leadership echoed Harper’s sentiment. They are confident and excited for the final meet of the season.

After watching Oklahoma celebrate consecutive national championships and seeing Penn State take home the title last year, the Cardinal men are ready to bring a championship back to the Farm. The team hasn’t won an NCAA title since 1995, while California, Oklahoma and Penn State have combined to win nine of the 12 championships since.

Also motivating the Stanford men is the fact that they will be competing in front of a home crowd, giving them a significant advantage - the host school has won two of the past three NCAA meets.

But it will be a tough challenge for the Cardinal. The men usually compete in Burnham Pavillion on well-broken-in equipment. The NCAAs, on the other hand, will take place in Maples on equipment that has only been used once. Stanford has been practicing at Maples all week to get a feel for the new apparatuses.

"We had to use this week to get comfortable and make it a home meet again," said senior Eli Alcaraz. "It’s normal to see people slipping a little at first [on the new equipment]," he added.

But the team has made the necessary adjustments.

"The equipment is fine," said Harper, who is No. 6 in the nation on pommel horse. "[The parallel] bars were tight and responsive," he said after warming up on Wednesday. "I feel ready."

The Stanford team has a wealth of experience in big meets. Harper, junior Jason Shen, Alcaraz, and senior David Sender and junior Sho Nakamori have each been to three NCAA championship meets. Redshirt senior Dylan Carney has four under his belt.

"I’m not too nervous because this is my fifth NCAAs, and I’ve got a great team around me," said Carney, the team’s co-captain along with Sender.

After injuring his ankle a couple of weeks ago, Carney sat out the conference championship meet two weekends ago so he would be ready for NCAAs. The rest seems to have worked.

"The ankle’s feeling pretty good," he said. "It hurts, but I can’t do any more damage to it so I’ll be ready to go [on floor exercise] if needed."

Carney is also set to compete on high bar, an event in which he won the 2006 NCAA individual title.

As Alcaraz put it, the Stanford upperclassmen are prepared "physically, mentally and emotionally."

The six Cardinal freshmen, on the other hand, are going into their first NCAA Championship meet. But don’t call them inexperienced.

"They do have a lot of big meet experience," said Alcaraz of the team’s freshmen. Tim Gentry, Josh Dixon, Alex Buscaglia, and Ryan Lieberman all have experience at national level club meets.

But the team’s senior guidance will still be useful. Shen’s main advice to the freshmen has been to stay aggressive.

"We don’t have to be perfect to win," said Shen. "We just need to keep doing what we’ve been practicing and hit our sets and we’ll win."

Gentry has heeded the advice of his elders, and the results have been phenomenal. He is ranked sixth in the country on still rings and will be competing this weekend on vault as well. Gentry has prepared for the most important meet in collegiate gymnastics by treating it like, well, just another meet.

"Once you start putting [the meet] up on a pedestal, you put too much pressure on yourself and it can hurt you," he said. "The upperclassmen have done a great job helping us keep that in mind."

"I’ve just told [the freshmen] to keep doing what they’re doing," said Harper.

Co-captain Sender is confident in the ability and mental toughness of his younger teammates.

"I have a lot of faith in our freshman," said the Nissen-Emery award finalist, given annually to the nation’s top senior gymnast. "They have been doing a great job all year and will be a huge part of our success this weekend."

The meet begins today with team preliminaries. 12 teams will be competing, and the top six will go onto the team finals on Friday night. Athletes will be selected to compete in individual event finals on Saturday based on their performances in team competition. Sender is one of the favorites to win the individual all-around competition. When asked which would mean more to him - an individual or team title - the answer was easy.

"The team always comes first," said Sender. "If we focus on doing the best we can for the team, then we will do well in our individual events. But the team’s success is the most important thing."

Stanford will face tough competition from reigning national champion Penn State and an Oklahoma team that beat the Cardinal at the MPSF championship meet just two weeks ago. Penn State is led by senior Casey Sandy, while Oklahoma is led by reigning all-around Champion John Horton.

But don’t discount Cal, warned Chris Harper: "they’re as good as anyone when they hit."

Stanford begins competition in the second session at 7 p.m. tonight. Team finals will take place on Friday night, and individual event finals will be held Saturday. All sessions will be held in Maples Pavilion, and the first 100 students get in free with SUID each day. Tickets are six dollars on Thursday and eight dollars on Friday and Saturday.