Hawkeyes look to build on 2010 momentum

IOWA CITY - They threw around the ‘E' word a lot Thursday afternoon during Iowa's baseball media day. As in “expectations.”

These Hawkeyes have high ones, and there actually seems to be a legitimate basis for them. Who'd have thought?

“Our expectations are to win a Big Ten championship,” said junior pitcher Jared Hippen. “That's our goal.”

“People are starting to give us credit,” said head coach Jack Dahm, beginning his eighth season. “Hopefully by the end of the year, we'll give them more reason to talk about Iowa baseball.”

All this optimism stems from Iowa's finish to last season. Seemingly dead and buried, the Hawkeyes won four of their final five Big Ten series, including a season-ending three-game sweep of Purdue, to make it to the conference tournament for the first time since 2007.

They finished second, a game from NCAA regionals. With seven positions starters back from that 30-28 team and depth in the starting pitching rotation and bullpen, there are, well, expectations.

Iowa begins its season with three games in Florida against Big East Conference teams next week. It's a 55-game schedule with the home opener scheduled for March 25 against Western Illinois.

“Our senior leadership last season was there,” said closer Kevin Lee, who had 13 saves in 2010. “We all got along great. The feeling was anybody would take a bullet for anybody else. It's the same thing this year.”

“I think the biggest thing is we made that run last year,” said senior catcher Tyson Blaser. “Almost everybody who made that run is back. We've been there before, and that's a big thing.”

Lefty Hippen was a second-team all-conference pick and is Iowa's ace, joined in the rotation by some combination of Nick Brown, Matt Dermody, Zach Kenyon and Ricky Sandquist. Lee will be set up in the bullpen by Kirkwood transfer Patrick Lala, who was drafted last summer by the Philadelphia Phillies.

The returning positions guys include former West Delaware preps Zach McCool (third base) and Phil Keppler (first base).

Here are video interviews with McCool and Lee: