The Bobcats don’t have to go far to figure out what it will take to compete at their level. The CIML Iowa Conference is the premier baseball league in the state of Iowa.

And while Marshalltown High School head coach Steve Hanson believes his team will be better on the diamond than last year’s iteration, he’s not certain how the improvement will register when it comes time to count up the wins and losses.

The Marshalltown baseball team swings into action with three road trips this week, starting with Tuesday’s 7 p.m. game at Newton. The Bobcats, who went 16-25 last summer with an 8-12 record in the CIML Iowa, hope to withstand the brutal conference schedule while making strides along the way.

The Iowa High School Baseball Coaches Association’s preseason rankings feature three CIML Iowa squads in the top four spots of the initial Class 4A poll, starting with top-ranked Johnston, No. 3 Dowling Catholic and No. 4 Urbandale. Johnston beat Dowling for last year’s state title, Urbandale narrowly missed a state tournament berth while Mason City fell in the quarterfinals to Dowling.

“It’s not great to get knocked down, but these guys have been around it enough, they understand there are going to be nights when it just doesn’t go your way,” Hanson said, “but they’ve always been very resilient. That comes from their upbringing and their ability.”

MHS won its first five games against league competition last year, but a key injury derailed the Bobcats’ promising start and a seven-game losing streak followed. Now that senior catcher Kody Ricken has endured major knee surgery and a whole lot of rehabilitation, Hanson said the return of his starting backstop will make a widespread impact.

Ricken was batting .484 with three doubles and nine RBIs in 12 games before going down in a home game against Urbandale.

“It’ll be wonderful to see him back on the field because it was so painful to not have him on the field,” said Hanson. “But I’m sure whatever pain we felt as a group, you could multiply that by 10 for him because that was an opportunity lost for him. But Kody Ricken is a very tough kid who did all of the rehab, has done all of the work and now has positioned himself to come back to be able to contribute and we hope he can do so on a high level.

“He just offers a great deal of stability, not only to the pitching staff but to our entire defense to have a guy [behind the plate] who can really shore it up and is willing to accept that responsibility. He’s got big shoulders and he’s worked hard to get where he is right now.”

Ricken’s catching duties will be eased by the return of Marshalltown’s top three pitchers from a year ago and beyond, including the team’s only first-team all-conference selection from a season ago. Senior Nate Vance led the Bobcats with 59 2/3 innings pitched last summer, going 4-6 with 46 strikeouts and a 3.28 earned run average.

“It starts with Nate Vance, where it has for the last couple of years,” Hanson said of his pitching staff. “Vance is a guy who understands baseball, understands his role, understands the value of strike one and has done that for a good portion of his career. When any of our guys or any pitcher anywhere is able to throw strike one it makes the game easier, particularly in this day and age with pitch counts being so critical.

“He gives us a great guy out front.”

The pitching staff will also be bolstered by the return of juniors Tate Kuehner and Wade Canaday. As a trio, Vance, Kuehner and Canaday led MHS in wins, innings pitched, ERA and strikeouts a year ago, but the team’s collective ERA of 5.18 was higher than in any single season since 2006. Having three key hurlers back on the bump will help the Bobcats bring that number down, and Ricken resuming his role behind the plate should make it easier to do so.

“From a pitching perspective, I know our guys are really pleased when they have a chance to throw to him because you can throw it in the dirt and not worry about it because he’s going to knock it down,” Hanson said of Ricken. “If somebody would happen to try to steal, OK, you’re going to have less than a 50 percent chance of making it because he’s going to throw you out.”

In order to take advantage of what the Bobcats hope is a strong committee on the mound, the bats will have to come around. Marshalltown batted .247 as a team last season and averaged just more than 3.5 runs per game. Only seven teams in 4A scored fewer total runs than MHS.

The Bobcats hope another year of experience and maturity will help them make up ground on the rest of their competition.

“The one thing that’s better for us than it has been the last few [years] is that we do have enough depth where if somebody isn’t performing up to expectations, we’ve got a way we can shuffle the lineup around and get some other guys a chance,” Hanson said. “And in the past I don’t know that we’ve had that much flexibility.”

There are a number of returners with starting experience around the diamond for MHS. Junior first baseman Dru Dobbins led the team with a .336 batting average and 11 doubles to go with 15 RBIs, but his season was slowed by a knee injury that also required offseason surgery. Junior shortstop Dylan Eygabroad flashed good glovework at the busiest spot on the infield, and Canaday will play third base when he isn’t on the mound.

Vance and Kuehner will rotate between the pitching rubber and center field, with a cast of others competing for the remaining spots. Newcomer Luke Appel is donning a baseball cap for the first time since seventh grade, and he will contend for one of the corner outfield spots, along with returners Blake Trowbridge, Brian Trowbridge and Wyatt Himes.

Sophomore Joseph Harris and senior twins Matt and Ryan Bohan will do battle for playing time on the infield, and senior Lucas Duff will try to work his way into the mix as well. Sophomore Will VanBuren may be called upon as a backup backstop.

“We don’t have to retrain a lot of stuff and that’s a huge advantage,” Hanson said of his large number of returners. “Many of those guys have been in the program for more than just a single year, so for some of them it’s pretty routine right now and that’s great so we can focus our efforts on getting those guys who are new to this level up to speed. Then you’ve got to make it all fit together but it’s really good to have some strength up the middle back and some veteran guys back on the mound who have done this before, and we hope for good results.”

The continuity can be seen in the coaching staff, too, which features former Bobcats at every level. Jake Borton is back as the varsity assistant, Colton Hanke is a volunteer assistant on the varsity, and Allen Mann and Cole Keeler will lead the underclassmen squads.

“When you only have a few assistant coaches, if we’re all on the same page it’s the best experience a kid can have because you’re going to get consistent instruction whether you’re with the freshman or junior varsity or high school team,” Hanson said. “We’re going to do stuff the same way and our staff has done a tremendous job.”

In the end, the Bobcats hope it all adds up to more wins than losses on the final ledger and a deep run into the postseason.

“I think we’re a better baseball team than we have been the last couple years,” Hanson said. “I don’t know how that’s going to equate to wins and losses in our league. We could be better and still not be successful every night out.

“Once school is out we’ve got six weeks to get it figured out and that’s a very small window. If we can keep moving forward and taking steps along that six-week path, we hope to be in a good position in July.”