The last time the Maine softball team had 16 wins going into April, it was on its way to an NCAA tournament berth.

Maine is 16-13 – its best start since 1994 when it was 16-10 – and the irony in this season of hope is the Black Bears are led by a sophomore.

Jen Burton of Winslow has the second-best record among America East pitchers with an 8-4 start – her freshman year record flip-flopped. Only Hofstra’s Jen Smith has a better record, at 13-7.

With Maine senior pitcher Mary Persson struggling to shut down batters and earn wins with a 3-6 mark, Burton’s sudden surge to prominence is a boost for the Bears.

Burton leads the squad with a team-low 1.59 ERA and 28 strikeouts. Persson is second with a 2.53 ERA and 20 strikeouts.

“Mary hasn’t helped herself. We’ll get two outs and we’ll struggle to get the third. We need to have a pitcher who will get the outs,” Maine coach Janet Anderson said. “Jen is doing very, very well. We expected she would – but we’re glad she started now.”

Burton said she is excited and surprised she is second in the league. She said with no summer league to keep her sharp in Winslow, she came back to school feeling flat. Her control wasn’t great during fall practices.

However, two weeks before Maine’s spring trip, things started to happen fast. The extra conditioning and practicing that Maine’s pitchers logged boosted Burton’s confidence and accelerated her progression.

“All the extra things we’ve done this year. All the work we’ve done with [strength and conditioning coach Dawn Strout], the plyometrics, a lot of lifting,” Burton said. “We lifted last year. But we weren’t supervised. Dawn motivates us. And I feel confident with the team behind me.”

Persson, who went 8-10 last year with a 2.42 ERA, said she expects to improve her record. She said the extra hour of practice the pitchers received this year has given her more confidence.

“I’ve been relaxed. It helps that there are four of us,” Persson said of herself, Burton, sophomore Vicki Brenner (4-1) and freshamn Nicole Sawyer (1-2). “We’ve talked of splitting games some this year if we need to, or just to give the other team a new look. We rarely did that last year.”

The University of Maine’s Wednesday doubleheader with Brown has been postponed because of Tuesday’s snowstorm. A makeup date has not postponed because of Tuesday’s snowstorm. A makeup date has not been set.

Maine’s weather problems could be alleviated in the future.

Maine coach Paul Kostacopoulos was a member of a baseball coaches committee that put together a proposal to extend the college baseball season by three weeks and it has received initial approval from the nation’s coaches.

The proposal would move the College World Series from the first weekend in June back to the last weekend in June.

Kostacopoulos said coaches in 20 conferences approved the measure. Six conferences disapproved of it, and two conferences were split down the middle.

“More importantly, it wasn’t the number of conferences that approved it, it was the [specific] conferences that did approve it, conferences like the ACC, SEC, Big 12, Big Ten, Conference USA, the Missouri Valley Conference, the Mid-American Conference and the PAC-10,” said Kostacopoulos. “They are the power brokers now. They are among the conferences that control the NCAA since the restructuring.”

The proposal will now go to the NCAA Championships Committee and, if they approve it strongly later this year, Kostacopoulos said it would have a very good chance of being passed by the entire NCAA membership at their annual convention next year. If that occurs, the longer season would go into effect in 1999.

“Sixty-eight percent of the country’s schools are cold-weather schools,” pointed out Kostacopoulos. “This makes too much sense not to do it. This is what is best for the student-athlete. This gives them a better chance to have a quality experience. They could be seen by their community in decent weather. The one drawback may be financial but we can work on that.

“We could give the players the entire week off during final exams. That would be very important academically. And we could also save money by avoiding trips where we get rained out and return without having played,” added Kostacopoulos.

He said the conferences would have the flexibility to rethink their scheduling with the extra three weeks.

Kostacopoulos would favor America East starting league play either in the first or second week of April and concluding the league schedule May 20 before having the tournament the following week.

This year’s tournament is scheduled May 8-11.