After a tough day of competition in West Point, N.Y., Stanford emerged at the top of the first preliminary group in the NCAA Men’s Gymnastics Championship. The Cardinal scored 359.00 points, well ahead of the other two qualifiers, Illinois and Ohio State (who scored 354.05 and 346.80 points, respectively). From the second qualifying group, Oklahoma, Michigan and California advanced to today’s NCAA Finals.

The main obstacle to Stanford’s second straight national championship will most likely be the Wolverines, who advanced with a score of 359.80. The Sooners, entering the competition ranked at No. 2 in the nation, will also pose a stiff challenge.

Stanford won four events as a team, and also took four individual titles in the same events—the floor exercise, the vault, the parallel bars and the horizontal bars.

Junior Josh Dixon won the vault, junior Alex Buscaglia won the horizontal bar, freshman Eddie Penev won the floor exercise and junior Ryan Lieberman took the parallel bars.

On the remaining two events, the rings and the pommel horse, Stanford placed second by small margins. On the rings, Stanford was led by junior Tim Gentry with a score of 15.15, while redshirt junior Lucas Hughes was the Cardinal’s best performer on the pommel horse.

Competition will begin tomorrow at 4 p.m. PST. Championships will be awarded both on a team basis and in individual events, and the NCAA overall champion will also be crowned. Live results will be available on the NCAA’s Web site.