Last weekend, the University of Maine softball team opened conference play like it was a new season – or it was a new team.

The Bears, who were 8-12 entering the weekend, snapped a four-game losing streak, going 3-1 to tie for second in America East with Hofstra. As if highlighting her team’s turnaround effort, senior Michelle Puls broke two school records.

Puls scored five runs in four games over the weekend to set the UMaine career record for runs scored with 94, breaking Tina Ouellette’s 1987 mark of 93. The shortstop eclipsed the career record of 484 at-bats after taking the plate for the 486th time.

About everything clicked for the Bears.

“[Freshman] Tara McMullen hit a homer. She was having trouble and she broke out this weekend… The difference was having Melissa Creegan back [at second]. Everybody was where they were supposed to be.”

Puls, who entered the weekend second in the league with a .376 average, saw it jump to .408 after she went 8-for-13 against Hofstra and Drexel, putting her far ahead of the league’s best. Boston University’s Kerry Herr is second at .370.

Puls now leads the nation in hits (40), runs (28) and average.

The former Bangor High star, who owns the UMaine record for doubles in a season (16), also has in sight the career-hits record of 174 set by UMaine assistant coach Deb Smith in ’94. Puls needs four hits to break it.

While Puls wasn’t surprised with UMaine’s improved effort, she said the timing of it was odd.

“It’s the weakest we played in Florida [8-12] and the strongest we’ve started the conference in my four years,” Puls said. “But the conference is what counts.”

Later this month, the UMaine baseball team will make an appearance at Hadlock Field in Portland, home of the Class AA Portland Sea Dogs.

The Bears are scheduled to take on Atlantic 10 power Massachusetts April 22 in a 5 p.m. non-league game. The contest will follow a 1 p.m. Eastern league game between Portland and Norwich.

In accordance with NCAA rules, separate admissions will be charged for the two games.

America East leader Delaware was ranked No. 21 in the country in the latest Collegiate Baseball NCAA Division I Poll released Monday.

The Blue Hens, who swept a four-game series from Maine March 28-29 in Newark, Del., check in with a 21-4 record. Delaware has racked up 18 consecutive victories, three shy of the school-record 21 the team registered last season.

Mike Ditzel of Charleston, a 1994 Foxcroft Academy graduate, is tearing up the track at Bucknell University in Lewisville, Pa.

Ditzel is the top 400-meter man for the Bison, and won the event with a 49.1 clocking at the Rider Quad Meet Extravaganza in Lawrenceville, N.J., on March 28.

Ditzel won the 1994 state Class B title at 400 meters as a Foxcroft senior and earned the 600-yard crown indoors as a junior.