Hearts racing, surrounded by deafening noise and pumped up with adrenaline, 11 players step onto the field for what could be the last time of the season. There are five wins standing between them and a national championship, and everything else ceases to matter.

“You feel like this … entire little stadium that they’ve set up for this particular tournament is suddenly just the whole world,” said senior defender Natalie Griffen. “That’s it, and all that exists is that field.”

When the No. 17 Cardinal (14-5-1) takes the field against No. 14 South Carolina (17-3-2) this Friday in its second-round match of the NCAA tournament, Griffen — along with six of her fellow seniors — will experience this feeling for one of the last times of her college career, as the team continues its 16th consecutive playoffs campaign.

Stanford is in a unique position for this year’s playoffs.

After losing five regular season conference games — the worst record during head coach Paul Ratcliffe’s tenure — the Cardinal entered the tournament unseeded. This is a major change for a team that has been awarded the No. 1 overall seed in the tournament for the past six years. For the first time in a long time, Stanford is statistically the underdog.

Of course, the legacy of the Stanford women’s team is immense; the team regularly produces Olympic and national team players and has gone to the College Cup in each of the last five years. Until this year, every member of the squad had only experienced a Stanford team that steamrolled its way over every opponent in the regular season and throughout the tournament. That legacy weighs on every single player on the team, serving as a constant reminder of what the women can and have achieved.

Given the different circumstances of this season, though, everyone on the team, from the freshmen to the seniors, will have to learn and adapt in new ways as they go through the postseason in an entirely new position. On the one hand, a single loss finishes not only the season, but ends the seniors’ college careers as well. On the other hand, there’s a new sense of freedom from coming in with an imperfect record.

“It’s exciting,” said senior forward and co-captain Courtney Verloo about experiencing her final postseason. “I feel like this year is an opportunity unlike any other year based on our season thus far, and it’s kind of a cool feeling to go in as an underdog with nothing to lose.”

That said, the mentality on the team going into the second chapter of the season is extremely intense; it’s do or die, and making sure that everyone on the team feels that sense of urgency is critical to the Cardinal’s postseason success.

So as the seniors wrap up their playoff careers and the freshmen begin theirs, a sense of postseason mentorship has emerged between the upperclassmen and the new players.

“I think they just have to understand — and I think they do now — how important this is, and how different it is from the regular season,” said junior midfielder and co-captain Alex Doll. “Everyone’s in this together and we all have one goal, and that’s winning the national championship … It’s just all about the team from this point forward.”

The freshman class — a group of eight extremely solid players who have seen quality time on the field this season — clearly recognizes how different the playoffs are, and has been learning in large part through the example set by the seniors.

“They push us really hard in practice,” said freshman forward Ryan Walker-Hartshorn. “They set a really competitive atmosphere.”

“It’s just a new vibe to practice and kind of like the regular season’s over now, and it’s all about postseason,” echoed freshman goalkeeper Jane Campbell, who has played a critical role this season after replacing now-retired senior co-captain Emily Oliver in goal. “The level is just crazy intense now, and it’s really exciting.”

Off the field, the seniors have also played a big role in preparing the freshmen for what lies ahead.

“They help us put it in perspective,” said freshman midfielder Stephanie Amack, who was recently named to the Pac-12 All-Freshman team. “They definitely remind us to enjoy it.”

The seniors’ most difficult task is to impress upon the freshmen just how high the stakes are in the postseason, and to convey the exhilaration that comes with a national championship. For the new players, understanding exactly how different — and potentially euphoric — the playoffs can be is difficult without having experienced it. With one game under their belts, however, the freshmen are on their way to finding their rhythm in the postseason.

For Doll, however, the underlying feelings of excitement and fire as a senior are exactly the same as those she experienced as a freshman.

“[As a freshman,] I believed that we could do it. Every game I felt like we could dominate and there was just no way anyone could beat us,” said Doll. “Just that sense of belief, I think, is kind of again what I feel this year, like we can do this.”

Though many unknowns lie ahead in the playoffs and further in their careers, this year’s freshman class shares Doll’s sense of absolute belief, and is ready to reach the College Cup.

“It’s a new slate and we’re just ready to win them out — win all the games out — until the national championship,” said freshman defender Maddie Bauer, who also earned a place on the Pac-12 All-Freshman team and Second Team All-Conference.

As far as the seniors are concerned, the eight freshmen are well prepared for the postseason and the many challenges that come with it. The group has proved itself poised and talented all season, and with three of them starting regularly, they will certainly continue to play a big role in the postseason.

Friday, the Cardinal will travel to Los Angeles for the second round of the playoffs. When the freshmen enter the stadium at UCLA — when their whole world is reduced to that single game — they’ll be ready.

“I think that they’ll be able to handle the pressure and the excitement just fine,” Oliver said.

 Contact Fiona Noonan at fnoonan ‘at’ stanford.edu.