The University of Maine achieved tremendous athletic success during 2003-2004.

The Black Bears won America East championships in women’s basketball and softball, while earning runner-up honors in men’s basketball, baseball, field hockey and women’s soccer.

The combined effort by UMaine student-athletes, coaches, trainers and administrators helped the university finish second in the battle for the America East’s Stuart P. Haskell Jr. Commissioner’s Cup.

League commissioner Chris Monasch made the announcement Wednesday.

“It’s an outstanding tribute to the student-athletes and their commitment,” said UMaine athletic director Patrick Nero. “I love that the coaches are following the direction we’re giving them about our expectations and they’re proving that based on the parameters we put on the program they can have a winning program.”

For the third straight year, Boston University won the award that recognizes the strongest athletic program in the conference as determined by a scoring system that rewards a school for success during regular-season and championship competition in the 22 sports sponsored by America East.

BU totaled 383 points to outdistance UMaine, which had 344. Northeastern was third (333), followed by Binghamton (326), Albany (322), New Hampshire (314), Stony Brook (266), Maryland Baltimore County (265), Hartford (208) and Vermont (203).

UMaine enjoyed its best finish in the 15-year history of the award, which is named in honor of the first commissioner of America East. Haskell, a former athletic director at UMaine, served as commissioner of the conference from 1987 until his retirement in 1997.

The Bears finished second despite not fielding teams in six of the 22 sports. Only Northeastern sponsors fewer teams (14) than UMaine among America East’s 10 teams.

“That’s quite an accomplishment to finish second based on the number of sports we compete in, in conference,” Nero said. “We had seven teams compete in championship games this year [including football in Atlantic 10 and hockey in America East] and all but two teams qualified for postseason.”

UMaine continues to overcome budget limitations and its geographic location by recruiting quality student-athletes.

“I think we do a great job as an entire program – students, coaches and staff – of accepting our challenges and answering them,” said Nero, who boasted 15 of UMaine’s 19 teams finished with cumulative grade point averages above 3.0 on a 4.0 scale.

“That’s saying a lot about these young people,” he added.

Boston University won bolstered by championships in women’s soccer and women’s tennis. The Terriers were runners-up in women’s basketball, women’s golf, women’s lacrosse and softball. The women’s soccer and men’s basketball teams were regular-season champs.

Northeastern had a conference-best five champions in field hockey, women’s swimming and diving, women’s indoor track and field, men’s outdoor track and field, and women’s outdoor track and field.

Winkin to direct regional

Husson College baseball coach and former University of Maine coach John Winkin will again be the tournament director at an NCAA Division I regional this weekend.

Winkin will run the regional at Stanford University’s Sunken Diamond in Palo Alto, Calif. It gets under way Friday with Long Beach State (36-19) facing St. John’s (36-21) and the University of Nevada-Las Vegas (37-22) taking on Stanford (44-12).

“[Long Beach State pitcher] Jered Weaver is supposed to be the number one pick [in the draft] so I’m looking forward to seeing him. And Mark [Stanford coach Mark Marquess] has been a good friend,” said Winkin.

All-American Weaver, brother of Los Angeles Dodger righthander Jeff Weaver, has a 14-1 record, a 1.68 earned-run average and 193 strikeouts in 128 1/3 innings.

Winkin enjoys running tournaments and pointed out this will be his “30th year involved with the regionals either as a coach or tournament director.”

He said having good umpires and good coaches to deal with make his job easy.

“The only problem can be the weather,” said Winkin who doesn’t expect that to be the case this weekend.

If Stanford wins the regional, Winkin will remain in Palo Alto for a best-of-three super regional series between the Cardinal and another regional winner. If Stanford isn’t involved, he will run a super regional in the east.

Trenkle gets top Bowdoin honor

Lora Trenkle, a senior All-American on the Bowdoin College women’s basketball team, was honored recently with the school’s Female Athlete of the year.

Trenkle, a native of Surry, led the Polar Bears women’s basketball team to a 30-1 record an a national runner-up finish in the NCAA Division III Women’s Basketball Tournament.

The two-time New England Small College Conference and ECAC New England Player of the Year helped Bowdoin post a 103-14 overall record during her four seasons in Brunswick.