NORTHAMPTON - GazetteNET, the electronic edition of the Daily Hampshire Gazette, has won a top award for its sports section in this year's competition among newspaper-owned Web sites in New England.

The recognition from the New England Associated Press News Executives Association is for newspapers with a print circulation under 40,000.

The Gazette's sports staff provides a live high school scoreboard at night; live blogs from high school tournament, UMass football and basketball games; other specialized online content; and, starting this month, a weekly podcast.

"This is the best online sports Web site at our level in New England specifically because the sports staff is so involved in it," said online editor Don St. John.

"They're all deep, regular online users in their own lives, they understand their audience, and they've worked closely with me and our Web developer Chip Kaye to do things specific to the Web that serve that audience - sound in stories; specialized pages for UMass and high school sports that get well-ordered, real-time information to readers; canny use of their blogs, especially for breaking news stories and live-blogging key games; Facebook channels; and now our weekly podcast," St. John said. "And we're hardly done. Our next goals are more use of video where that can add value to stories, and up-to-the-minute use of Twitter from game sites."

Gazette sports editor Stanley Moulton said the award recognizes the commitment of sports writers Matt Vautour, Mike Moran and Jim Pignatiello to combine an excellent print product with the timeliness and unique qualities of the Web.

GazetteNET has won numerous awards in the annual contests sponsored by NEAPNEA, including best special section for its coverage of UMass basketball, and best overall Web site three times for newspapers under 40,000 circulation.

The top online sports section this year for newspapers over 40,000 circulation is Projo.com, the Web site for the Providence (R.I.) Journal. This year's awards will be presented at NEAPNEA's fall conference Friday in Warwick, R.I.