The calendar might still say it’s winter outside, but it sure felt like spring inside the Irwin Indoor Football Practice Facility on Monday as the Illinois baseball team held its first full practice of the 2006 season.

New head coach Dan Hartleb was eager to finally kick off his first season at the helm after spending the last 15 as the pitching coach under former coach and college baseball Hall of Famer Itch Jones.

Last year, the Illini opened their Big Ten schedule with a four-game sweep against Ohio State and never fell out of first place en route to their first conference title since 1998. The season was a fitting end for Jones, who retired weeks later.

“Our guys want to get back to where we were last year,” Hartleb said. “As well as we did, we kind of stumbled when we realized how well we were doing and I think that’s left a bad taste in some of our guys’ mouths.”

Jones wasn’t the only key member to leave the Illini following the season. Junior catcher Chris Robinson was selected by the Detroit Tigers in the third round of the MLB first-year player draft in June and seniors Jimmy Conroy, Drew Davidson, Toby Gardenhire and junior James Morris were also selected.

The Illini also lost infielders Chad Frk, J.R. Kyes and Dusty Bensko to graduation, and leftfielder Ryan Rogowski signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers in the fall.

“There’s no doubt we lost a lot of people from last year’s team,” said senior right fielder Trevor Huisinga, one of only two returning starters. “But, we also have a lot of people who red shirted last year but were around the program and understand how it works, so I think we’ll be alright.”

As for positions, Huisinga said nothing is for certain yet.

“The whole field is pretty much open and up for grabs because we have so many new people.”

Junior infielder and designated hitter Mike Rohde added, “The one thing we do know is that everybody is working really hard and no matter what we do, we’re going to do it together and we’re going to do it hard.”

Illinois’ pitching staff looks a little bit older than its offense as the Illini return seven active pitchers from last season’s squad, including all-Big Ten right-hander Brian Blomquist. Blomquist led the Illini with 10 wins last season and posted a 3.53 earned run average in 102 innings.

Hartleb said he is glad to have the players back that he does have, but said right now he isn’t focusing on who goes where. He just wants to get going smoothly.

“Transition-wise, everything has been fairly simple,” he said. “Coach Jones always gave us a lot of responsibility with practice and what we were doing every day so I haven’t needed to do a lot of things differently.”

But, Rohde said there have been some changes.

“Some things are new and interesting, and its fun that way,” he said. “It makes coming to practice each day interesting because you don’t know what we’re going to do – it’s almost like opening a new package every day.”