Despite making its 27th consecutive appearance at the NCAA Tournament this afternoon, the No. 4 Stanford women’s tennis team has a different feel coming into this year’s championships.

As the fourth seed in the tournament, the Cardinal women enter as underdogs behind defending champion Georgia Tech and powerhouse Northwestern. If anything, however, this is to Stanford’s advantage.

“There’s always a different feeling every single year,” junior Jessica Nguyen said. “We’re in a different position than I’ve ever experienced, coming in as the four seed. It’s huge for us to know that people don’t expect us to win.

“We know we have the ability and talent to win and it really gets us riled up.”

And getting the Stanford women’s tennis team mad isn’t something the rest of the field wants to do.

The Cardinal women are on a seven-game win streak and have come out on top in 13 of their last 14 dual matches.

In the meanwhile, they have continued their home dominance, stretching their home win streak to 132 consecutive matches.

“We’re very excited and fortunate to host the first two rounds,” Nguyen said. “It’s definitely a different environment. It’s more intense than any other home match. It’ll be great because the freshmen haven’t experienced that yet.”.

This afternoon, Stanford squares off with Boston University at 1 p.m. at the Taube Family Tennis Stadium.

The Terriers are making their tenth consecutive appearance at the tournament after winning their 15th straight American East title.

The winner of this first round match will go on to face either Texas A&M or Washington.

Though the Cardinal has not faced Boston or Texas A&M, the team is ready to take on any opponent.

“Right now, our mentality is that we’re going to go out there and play 100 percent,” Nguyen said. “It doesn’t really matter who we’ve faced — whether we’ve played them before or whether we know the girls. We’re going to go out there and focus on ourselves and focus on performing.

“When we do that, we come out on top,” Nguyen said.

Certainly, Stanford has set its eyes on beyond the first two rounds.a

The top-16 teams in the tournament will advance to Tulsa, Okla. where a champion will be crowned.

“Everybody’s been focused and intense,” Nguyen said. “You can really tell that we have our eyes on the goal. We go through a whole season before NCAAs but we know our only goal of the entire year is to win NCAAs.”

In the postseason, Stanford has regularly stepped up its game. They are 104-12 in the postseason, winning 15 of the 26 possible titles.

For now, the task at hand is to advance past these opening rounds, which was made more difficult by injuries at the Pac-10 Championships.

One of the most striking blows to the squad was a strained pectoral suffered by freshman Hilary Barte, who has simply dominated at the top of the lineup.

Fortunately for the Card, Barte’s injury has healed after two weeks of recuperation.

“Hilary’s been playing for the past week and it looks like she’s on her game,” Nguyen said. “She’s playing really well, and we’re excited to have her back at the number one spot. It’s looking very good for us I think.”

With the two week layover, the Cardinal women have been able to rest for the long haul.

“Everything we did leading up to NCAAs was preventative and more precautionary,” Nguyen said. “Our main goal is to be healthy for the first day of NCAAs and I think we’ve accomplished that. People have been taking care of themselves, getting treatment and right now we’re in really good shape.”

So, with a recovered squad, Stanford now attempts to reclaim the national championship.

As the postseason comes along, the intensity surely has ramped up for the Cardinal.

“We’ve all seen a big change in our practices,” Nguyen said. “We can’t wait to host the first two rounds here. It’s such a treat to have it here. Hopefully, we’re looking forward to going to Tulsa and taking the title.”