The Sacramento State gymnastics team will face the University of Nebraska, Northern Illinois University and Bridgeport University on Saturday night, looking to build on its strong performance in its last meet.

The Hornets put forth a record-breaking meet on Feb. 19 against San Jose State in which they established a new school record of 196.475, a mark that is on par with some of the elite teams in the country.

Sac State will have to earn similar results on Saturday if it is going to compete with Nebraska, a team ranked 14th nationally. The Hornets will enter Saturday’s meet ranked 36th and their regional qualifying score (194.440) is over 1.5 points below Nebraska’s (195.955).

Nebraska has scored more than 196.000 in four out of seven meets this season, a mark that Sac State has only reached twice in school history.

If the Hornets are to keep up with the Nebraska Cornhuskers, it will probably be because of a strong showing on the uneven bars, the discipline that Sac State had issues with earlier in the season.

In the Hornets’ record-breaking meet against San Jose State, however, Sac State set a school record with a score of 49.400 on bars, which propelled the Hornets to the overall school record.

A score north of 48.500 would be a good result for the Sac State team that is averaging 48.261 on bars, but it might not be enough against the caliber of competition that the team faces in this meet.

Sac State’s other opponents for Saturday, Northern Illinois and Bridgeport, are two teams that should be formidable adversaries as well, ranking 38th and 39th respectively.

Both Northern Illinois and Bridgeport are close behind the Hornets in the national rankings, which should provide extra incentive for them to compete hard and chase high scores.

The Hornets will look to improve their own national ranking in hopes of qualifying for the NCAA Championship, which allows for the top 36 teams in the country to compete for a chance at nationals in April.

Sac State is entering the home stretch of its season, and performing well in Saturday’s meet could go a long way toward finishing the season strong and winning the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation conference for the second time in three seasons.