“We’re confident right now, and I’m just trying to get them some touches (in practice) and make sure their legs are ready and not overdo things,” Saxton said. “Everybody’s feeling pretty good, and I think we’re excited with out matchup to avenge an earlier loss to Iowa.”

After a brief hiatus, the Big Ten Tournament makes a return to the conference for the first time since 2008.

The Spartans entered the tournament as the No. 4 seed that year and played No. 5 Illinois in the opening round. After beating the Fighting Illini, 4-3, on penalty kicks the team fell to No. 1 seed Penn State, 1-0.

Of the current MSU players, there are 10 leftover from the 2008 team, most notably seniors forwards Laura Heyboer and Hannah Peterson, midfielders Mikki Dennis, Megan Pines and Taylor Miller, defender Katelin Chaklos and goalkeeper Jill Flietstra.

With many of the players getting their last shot at a Big Ten Tournament victory, the team plans to take an aggressive approach in capturing the program’s first conference tournament title.

“Since we’ve played (Iowa) before and unfortunately lost, we’re excited to play them again,” sophomore defender Annie Steinlage said. “Last time we played Iowa we sat back a lot, so I think we’re going to focus a lot on our attacking and make sure we go out aggressive.”

The Hawkeyes ended their season with a 2-0 road win against Wisconsin and finish their regular season in fifth place — the second highest the program has finished in its 14-year history.

Iowa’s leading goal-scorers this season have been forwards Cloe Lacasse (12 goals, 6 assists) and Leah DeMoss (8 goals, 16 points). On MSU’s side, Heyboer and junior forward Olivia Stander have led the way with 29 of the team’s 38 goals in 2011.

In the net, Flietstra has been as solid as any goalkeeper in the country, leading the Big Ten in GAA (0.74) and save percentage (.852) in addition to her nine shutouts on the year.

Heyboer said the team has the pieces to get a tournament victory but added that winning is a matter of putting the pieces together at the right time.

“We have the talent, we have the girls and the speed and the offense, defense. We have all of the pieces,” Heyboer said. “It’s just putting them together. If we can do that, which I’m very confident we can, we’re going to have a great run in the tournament.”

With a win, the Spartans would move on and play the winner of No. 2 Illinois and No. 7 Ohio State. Earlier in the season, MSU fell to Illinois, 1-0, but closed out its home season with a 2-0 triumph against Ohio State.