The UNC Wilmington baseball team comes into the 2015 season looking to regain its dominance in the Colonial Athletic Association.

After a disappointing 2014 where the conference preseason favorites finished 30-27 and third in the league, the Seahawks are confident they can get back to the program’s winning ways.

“We’re preseason second in the conference, but I think we’re definitely the best team in the conference,” said UNCW outfielder Casey Golden. “We’re going to focus and really get after it,” Golden said. “We’re going to try to be the best team we can be and there’s a lot of potential there.”

The CAA baseball coaches picked UNCW to finish second behind defending champion College of Charleston. The 2015 Seahawks are a young squad with only three seniors returning from last year’s team.

However, the key to success this season is finding a replacement for starting pitcher Mat Batts, who graduated last year.

Head Coach Mark Scalf named Nick Monroe, Ryan Foster, and Evan Phillips as his weekend starters for the upcoming season. The trio combined to go 5-11 with a 4.41 ERA in 2014.

All three juniors showed flashes of brilliance in 2014, but were inconsistent throughout the year.

“He’s (Batts) going to be hard to replace,” Monroe said. “But we have a lot of talent here and I think we have some guys who are ready to step up and who have made the right progress over the past three years.”

The starting pitcher with the most experience, Jordan Ramsey, will be pitching from the bullpen this season. Coach Scalf believes Ramsey will thrive as a reliever who isn’t expected to throw more than three innings an appearance.

While the pitching scenario remains a question mark, the Seahawks have the potential to have the best offense in the CAA this year.

Top returners in the lineup include seniors Corey Dick and Luke Dunlap, junior Terrence Connelly, and sophomore Casey Golden. The conference’s coaches named Dick and Golden to the preseason All-CAA team.

Dick comes back after leading the Seahawks in 2014 with a .315 batting average, six home runs and 38 RBI’s.

“We’ve got a lot of confidence with the lineup,” Dick said. “I had an injury in the fall and just got to sit and watch these guys play and it tickles me to death watching these guys swing the bat. I think we’re all just ready to play now.”

Coach Scalf organized another difficult non-conference schedule for the Seahawks in 2015. UNCW struggled in the early stages of last year’s schedule, and this inconsistency carried over into conference play.

Coach Scalf and the Seahawks are ready for the task at hand. The players hope to reach the school’s first super regional, and a trip to Omaha and the College World Series is within their sights.

“It certainly suits us well when we get into conference play,” Scalf said. “I don’t think we will play anybody any better than some of the nonconference opponents we have early. Our guys are prepared to get after it, and hopefully in the back end we will get the chance to play some similar competition in a regional tournament.”