STANFORD, Calif. – Three-time defending national champion Stanford received the No. 9 seed in the NCAA tournament when the bracket was announced on Monday morning. It's the Cardinal's sixth straight appearance in the postseason and 17th overall.
The 48-team field has 16 seeded squads, of which the Cardinal is one, that receive byes into the second round. Stanford (11-3-4) will host the winner of UC Irvine (11-5-3) and Grand Canyon (12-8-0) at Laird Q. Cagan Stadium on Sunday at 5:30 p.m. in a match televised on Pac-12 Networks.
"We're ready to go," said Jeremy Gunn, Stanford's Knowles Family Director of Men's Soccer. "We're happy and excited to still be playing, to still be training and to be competing next Sunday. And those are the only things that really matter at this point in time."
Tickets will go on sale at 9 a.m. on Tuesday by visiting gostanford.com/tickets or calling 800-STANFORD. Reserved seats are $15. General admission prices are $10 for adults and $8 for students, youths and seniors.
The Cardinal, the Pac-12 outright champion, is 27-12-6 all-time in the NCAA tournament and 14-2-4 at home, advancing on penalty kicks in three out of those four draws. Stanford is ranked No. 6 in the latest United Soccer Coaches poll and is No. 4 in the RPI, both released early last week. Its stretch of six consecutive postseason berths is tied for the longest in Stanford history along with a run from 1997 to 2002.
"We said at the beginning of the year, that through the regular season, we're the team that everybody in the country wants to play," Gunn said. "Then, once it becomes posteason time, my assumption would be that we're the team in the country that nobody wants to play."
Stanford is one of two programs to win back-to-back-to-back national championships and this go-around will attempt to match Virginia's record of four consecutive NCAA titles (1991-94).
The Cardinal, 63-10-12 (.812) since 2015, did not allow a goal throughout the entire 2017 tournament for the second straight year and upped its NCAA-record postseason shutout streak to 12 - a stretch of 1,214 minutes and 20 seconds. Stanford has also gone 37-5-8 (.820) in the Pac-12 in winning five consecutive conference championships.
Stanford finished its regular season 11-3-4 overall and 7-2-1 in conference. The Cardinal is 43-5-10 in its last 58 matches at home.
