The Cardinal will begin play as the No. 1 seed of the Stanford Regional of the 2008 NCAA Baseball Championship tonight when it faces off against No. 4 UC-Davis.

If Stanford wins, the team will move on to face the winner of No. 2 Pepperdine and No. 3 Arkansas match-up, on Saturday.

But first the Cardinal must take down the Aggies, who have given Stanford trouble all season: Stanford has lost both match-ups against UC-Davis this year. In early April, the Aggies came from behind to win 9-8 in 12 innings, and at the end of the month, they downed the Cardinal, 10-8.

“They’re very good,” said coach Mark Marquess. “They’ve got some young players, but the nucleus is an older team. They’ve played a lot; they know how to play.”

The Cardinal will face both an explosive offense and the Aggies’ staff ace, senior right-hander Eddie Gamboa (6-3, 2.67 ERA). Stanford has yet to face Gamboa this year as teams save their best arms for weekend series and both match-ups between the Cardinal and UC-Davis have come during the week.

“He’s an experienced pitcher who knows how to pitch,” said Marquess. “He’s going to change speeds very well.”

“It all starts with Eddie,” said UC-Davis catcher Jake Jeffries.

Stanford will send out its own ace, senior Erik Davis, to combat a tough Aggies lineup. Davis is 7-2 on the year, including four complete games. He normally pitches the middle match of the weekend series but will head to the mound on Friday to try and give the Cardinal an early advantage in the tournament. It will be the first time he has faced UC-Davis on the year.

He will have an arduous task: Jeffries headlines an Aggies’ attack that features the fast and powerful centerfielder Ryan Royster and the ever-consistent third baseman Ty Kelly.

“The teams you’re playing are at their best level. You have to play well defensively,” said Marquess.

Stanford’s lineup is dangerous as well, though. Catcher Jason Castro, second baseman Cord Phelps, center fielder Sean Ratliff and first basemen Brent Milleville and Randy Molina provide a solid center to the Cardinal attack.

But Marquess said that the hitters that may put Stanford over the top could be unforeseen.

“In the postseason, it’s guys you didn’t expect — guys at the bottom of your lineup,” he said. “There’s an element of luck. It makes it exciting for fans, but it makes coaches’ hair go gray.”

Playoff baseball, Marquess said, is thoroughly unpredictable.

“There’s so much parity,” he said. “There’s a very fine line between winning and losing.”

“If you look at the history of the tournament, especially recently, it isn’t always the highest ranked team, it is the team that is playing the best baseball at the time,” said UC-Davis coach Rex Peters. “It is really a wide open field. Even this region is wide open, it is really who is playing the best baseball at the time.”

Indeed, Marquess said that Stanford isn’t feeling the strain of being a No. 1 seed, both because of the breadth of the teams involved and the Cardinal’s own remarkable season.

“There’s not as much pressure because it’s unexpected that we’re here,” he said. “We were picked to finish sixth or seventh in the conference; we’re not supposed to be here.”

Still, that hardly means that Stanford is settling.

“We’re going to take each game at a time, but we want to make it to Omaha,” said Castro.

In order to do so, the Cardinal must outlast its three regional opponents over the course of the double-elimination tournament. If Stanford wins, it’ll face the victor of the Waves/Razorbacks match-up and will be able to control its destiny. But even with a loss, the Cardinal will be able to redeem itself on Saturday and could still potentially win the regional.

In any case, tonight’s match-up with the Aggies is the first step on the way to Omaha. Tonight’s game is set to start at 5 p.m. at Sunken Diamond.