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WATERVILLE — The Colby women’s hockey team passes a sign in the tunnel to the ice that states the team’s expectations.

“Today we make history.”

The Mules have made plenty of history lately. In 2022-23, they set a program record for wins in a season (18) that they matched last year.

Colby is off to another strong start this season, including wins over Hamilton on Friday and Saturday.

But there’s still more to accomplish, starting in its own conference. Colby still seeks its first championship in the New England Small College Athletic Conference, one of the top Division III women’s hockey leagues in the nation.

“That’s certainly a goal of ours,” said Colby coach Holley Tyng, in her 10th season with the Mules. “We talk about March 7, that’s the date of the NESCAC championship, and that’s where we want to be. But we have a long way to go right now.”

The Mules reached the NESCAC final in 2007-08 and have not made it past the semifinals since. They have reached the semifinals five times under Tyng, who earned her 100th career victory, all with the Mules, last season. Colby has also reached the second round of the NCAA DIII tournament three of the past four seasons and produced a DIII All-American each of the past four years. Defenseman Breanna Studley made the second team as a junior last season.

Colby is getting contributions both from its upperclassmen and a 10-player freshmen class. Studley (1 goal, 9 assists) and fellow senior Courtney Schumacher (8 goals, 2 assists) lead the team in points, while freshman forwards Marian Legge and Emily Olsthoorn are close behind with seven and six points, respectively.

“With a group of 10 freshmen, you never know what you’re going to get,” Studley said. “But I think our group has adapted pretty well. These freshmen are making a name for themselves pretty quickly. We just need to keep it going. It’s a great start to the second half of the season.”

Goalies Grace Caligiuri (3-1, 1.51 goals-against average) and sophomore Ally Martiniello (4-1, 1.49 GAA) continue the team trend of strong goaltending.

“It started with Nina Prunster (DIII All-American in 2021-22) and it sort of trickled down from there with (Mandy Busky) and Paige (Bolyard) and now Grace, Ally, and (Serafina Applegate) is coming up the pipeline,” said Tyng. “We’ve been very fortunate that somewhere along the line, we got a great one and the rest have just continued to stick.”

The Mules have won three straight games and continue to have high expectations.

“I think (the NCAA tournament) is the standard that we have now as a program,” Studley said. “We just get better every single day and I think the NCAA tournament is the standard every single year. We can’t look past the NESCAC because we want to win a NESCAC championship just as bad, but I think we want to be involved and competing in those every year. That’s just the way Colby women’s hockey is right now.”

The NESCAC schedule will help the Mules prepare for the postseason. Colby will face Amherst, which has won two of the last three conference titles, and Middlebury, which has won the NESCAC title 11 times, in February.

“We set a new standard with this weekend with what we know we can do,” said Schumacher, who scored two goals in a 4-1 win over Hamilton on Saturday. “We know that these NESCAC games coming up are going to be our biggest challenge, but we’ve been prepping for this all the way through, since October. We knew this was coming. I think we just need to keep playing hard and playing our game, and that will give us success.”