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WATERVILLE — Just three years after setting a school record for wins in one season, the Colby College softball team is on the verge of doing it again. There’s something bigger on the minds of the players, though.

Since the New England Small College Athletic Conference first contested a softball tournament championship in 2001, Colby has never won it. In fact, in a league that’s been dominated by Tufts and Williams for a quarter-century, the Mules have never reached the NESCAC title game.

“We talk about it every day,” said Emma Burnham, a senior infielder from Limington. “It’s a huge part of our end goal; that’s where we want to be. Every year, we come in here, and we want to go out and win that NESCAC championship. This year, it’s been wanting to win, knowing our role and making sure we get to that end.”

Colby has positioned itself better than ever before to win that title. The Mules, ranked 13th in NCAA Division III, have taken a major leap this year, and now they top the NESCAC standings with nine games to go in the regular season.

The 2020s have marked a major turnaround for Colby softball. After going 2-28 overall and 0-12 in NESCAC play in 2018, the Mules were 4-28 and winless in conference play again in their first season under current coach Terren Allen in 2019. COVID then forced the cancellation of the 2020 season.

Then the turnaround started. A 19-15 season in 2022 marked the first winning record since 2009. In 2023, the Mules set the program’s single-season wins record by going 24-14. This year, at 22-5 going into a game Thursday against Thomas, Colby is all but certain to break the wins record again.

“Part of the appeal (of Colby) was to have that opportunity to turn this program around and to have an impact not just on this team but on the trajectory of the program going forward,” said senior outfielder Carissa Cassidy. “To do that and to be competing (for a championship), it’s been really cool for us.”

Colby returned the bulk of its 2025 roster, and many of those players are much improved this season. Led by Cassidy, whose .479 batting average is the best by any Mules player in at least 15 years, the team’s average has jumped from .291 to .337. The pitching staff’s ERA has gone from 4.40 to 2.04.

That improvement in the circle is the product of a diverse trio of starters. Senior right-hander K.C. DeSarno (5-0, 1.78 ERA) and sophomore southpaw Sophia Meade (7-2, 2.08) have seen their respective ERAs drop from 3.07 and 3.70 a year ago, and freshman righty Sharlotte Stazinski (9-2, 1.43) has been a brilliant addition.

“I’m a spin pitcher who relies on getting effective outs, and Sophia is very similar, but her being left-handed gives us something different,” DeSarno said. “Sharlotte throws a lot harder than the both of us and also has great spin. Having that righty-lefty-righty combination with three very different pitchers has been very effective.”

Much of the improvement, DeSarno said, has come from off-field initiatives during the offseason. The team began working with a mental health performance coach, Beaux Myers, and also had a U.S. Army psychologist conduct assessments to determine how players and coaches could best feed off each other’s personalities.

Even in the fall, Allen could see at practices that this team had a different swagger to it. Then, at a March tournament in Claremont, Florida, Colby was 10-2, including wins against nationally ranked Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Wisconsin-Oshkosh.

“We had a few great games like that over (spring) break where you could really feel it, especially those two,” Allen said. “I think there’s been bits and pieces (in the past) of us feeling that we could do it, but this year, it’s been an entire year like that. I think everyone on the team has felt that, too.”

Doubleheader splits with nationally ranked Tufts (ninth) and Husson (16th) earlier this month solidified Colby’s confidence. Now, the Mules lead NESCAC with an 8-2 conference record after splitting a doubleheader with 25th-ranked Middlebury on April 12 and sweeping Williams last Friday.

With the regular season winding down, Colby players are thinking about the NESCAC tournament May 8-10 at Bowdoin, where they’ll have a chance to become the first member of the Colby-Bates-Bowdoin triumvirate to win a conference softball title.

“The past few years, we’ve been fourth in the NESCAC, and that’s amazing, but we’ve been trying really hard to elevate ourselves even more,” DeSarno said. “So, (winning a NESCAC title) would mean absolutely everything. This is our goal every single year, and I don’t think any team is more deserving.”