There are big shoes to fill.

That’s what the 2008 season boils down to for the pitchers and catchers of the Illinois baseball team, and Coach Dan Hartleb is more than confident his team has what it takes to repeat the success of last year’s squad.

The Illini lost catcher Lars Davis, the 2007 Big Ten Player of the Year, to the MLB draft. Also gone are relievers Jake Toohey and Brian Long, as well as the team’s top starter, Tanner Roark.

The good news for the Illini is that they return juniors Scott Shaw and Mike Stankiewicz, who combined for 14 conference starts last season and a 6-6 record.

“We had a lot of pitchers that we threw in at a young age last year,” Hartleb said. “We have more experience than we’ve had in a while on the mound.”

Shaw and Stankiewicz will pitch this weekend in Edinburg, Texas, in what will be an important opportunity to gauge where the top of Illinois’ rotation stands.

Both pitchers spent the summer working on their game – Shaw in the Northwoods summer league where he was a midseason all-star, and Stankiewicz for the Crystal Lake Cardinals of the Chicago Suburban Baseball League.

But Shaw has just one personal goal on his mind for this weekend.

“A ‘W.’ That’s it,” he said. “If we win, I’m happy.

“We can’t really think about (who we’ve lost). That’s in the past. There’s no looking back – we’re very capable of winning with what we have now.”

Junior Aaron Martin, who started eight games in 2007, will take over the No. 3 spot in the rotation. Hartleb has until mid-March, when four-game series begin to appear on the schedule, to determine who will be his fourth starter.

Fighting for that spot will be Ben Reeser, Billy Barrett and Kevin Manson, all of whom started games in Big Ten play a season ago.

Hartleb said he looks for starters that can command three pitches effectively and work deep into games, skills he knows his rotation already possesses.

“Now it’s just a matter of who can do that consistently,” he said.

Completing Illinois’ battery will be Aaron Johnson, a sophomore backstop who played at the same Prairie Baseball Academy as his predecessor, Davis, whose .400 average and 13 homers will surely be missed.

“I don’t expect anybody to be Lars Davis,” Hartleb said. “There’s very few third-round picks in the country, so he was a very special player.”

But Johnson isn’t buying into the pressure.

“We got a lot of our starters back so I don’t feel that much pressure,” he said. “I think other guys will pick up the slack from (Davis) being gone.”

The Illini have additional depth behind the plate in Mike Giller, who returns after starting 10 games in 2007 and adds a left-handed bat to the bench.

“I think all the catchers we have now have been working hard, and the pitchers have taken a liking to them,” said Shaw of the staff’s adjustment to its new battery mates.

Shaw earned his first win of the 2007 season against Sam Houston State, the team he’ll face Friday in the season opener.