Sometimes a year away from your sport is career-ending.

The competition dramatically improves its game. Your team changes its approach, and suddenly there’s no longer a place on the roster. Or maybe the requisite rust is too much to overcome.

Colby College and its softball foes have only one question about comeback kid Randi Arsenault these days.

What rust?

After stepping away from the sport for her junior year, Arsenault, a right-handed pitcher from South Paris, is flinging the ball with head-spinning authority this spring.

The Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School product was 3-0 with two saves on Colby’s recent spring trip to Florida. All the White Mules did was go 10-0, shutting out five opponents. And Arsenault’s statistics only get more staggering.

In a fraction over 24 innings pitched, Arsenault has struck out 23 hitters while walking a lonely one. Her ERA is a microscopic 0.29, and opposing hitters are hitting at a lean .169 clip.

Arsenault pitched a five-inning no-hitter against MIT while in the Sunshine State. The only blemish preventing a perfect game was an infield error, allowing MIT’s first hitter of the game to reach base.

Early-season awards are flying Arsenault’s way. She celebrated twin trophies early last week, named player of the week in both the New England Small College Athletic Conference and ECAC Division III New England.

Colby’s 10-0 opening stretch stands in stark contrast to last year’s solid if unspectacular final mark of 17-14.

Great Lake

Garrett Lake of Farmington (Mt. Blue) is on a dramatic scoring binge to start his fourth and final lacrosse season at Maine Maritime Academy.

Lake has 16 goals in four games for the undefeated Mariners, who have brandished record-setting team scoring numbers along the way.

He notched three goals and three assists Wednesday in Maine Maritime’s 14-3 rout of Husson. Stunningly that was, by far, the Mariners’ lowest scoring output of the year.

Maine Maritime set a school standard for single-game goal differential in a 26-1 throttling of Thomas. Lake registered a career-high seven goals to feed the scoring inferno, assisting four other strikes.

Lake also scored three times each against Green Mountain, a 20-2 disparity, and Saint Joseph’s, a 24-3 dismantling.

One of Maine Maritime’s drubbings did come with local highlights for the vanquished opponent.

Ben Landry, a freshman from Lewiston, picked up a goal and an assist for Husson in its encounter with the powerful Mariners. Fellow first-year Nick Brown of Sabattus (Oak Hill) also contributed an assist for the Eagles.

There’s no breaking Even

While indoor track and field performers make the welcome transition to sunlight and a cool breeze at their backs, winter recognition continues to trickle in.

Tim Even of Stoneham (Fryeburg Academy) reaped another reward from his sensational first indoor campaign at the University of Southern Maine last week. The Little East Conference proclaimed Even its rookie track athlete of the year.

Team and individual titles galore and a school record characterized Even’s inaugural go-round with the Huskies.

At the State of Maine Championships, Even won the 1,000 meters and ran a leg of the victorious 8×800 relay. In the process of leading the Huskies to a second-place finish, Even received the Jim Wescott Award, symbolic of the outstanding runner at the annual meet.

Even captured titles in the 1,000 meters and the mile at the Little East and New England Alliance championships. He set a school mark in the 800, was named to the All-New England Division III team, and helped Southern Maine to a top-10 finish at the NCAA championships.

Quick hits

• Edward Little graduate Jessica Martineau missed Southern Maine’s first four lacrosse games of the season, but she has wasted no time becoming a vital part of the Huskies’ attack. Martineau scored four goals in a 12-11 loss to Castleton State last week. Martineau has found the net six times in her first two contests for the Huskies (3-3).

• Freshmen Cerise Humphrey of Fryeburg and Heidi Swett of Turner (Leavitt) were a bright spot for the USM softball team in a 9-4 loss to the University of New England last week. Both players sprayed two hits in the opening game of a doubleheader. Humphrey has started all 16 games for the Huskies, batting .293 with six RBIs and a team-leading three stolen bases.