AMHERST

The 1990s were a hard act to follow for the University of Massachusetts as decades go.

There were a men's basketball Final Four, a Division I-AA Football Championship, final fours in field hockey and women's soccer and two Women's College World Series appearances.

But the first decade of this millennium saw plenty of highlights. In no particular order, here are six stories that defined the decade from 2000-2009.

Softball dominance continues - Looking back, it's still mind boggling that Elaine Sortino almost walked away. In 1996, she made the decision to step down as the Minutewomen's' softball coach to focus on her duties as associate athletic director.

But a quirk of fate - when her replacement decided not to come to UMass - and 14 years later, Sortino is still coaching and maybe better than she ever has.

In this decade, the Minutewomen advanced to 10 NCAA Tournaments while winning the Atlantic 10 championship in nine of those seasons.

Softball has been the school's most reliable great program and is showing no signs of slowing down.

Lacrosse ends Final Four drought - Arguably, the most exciting 11 minutes, 53 seconds in UMass sports history happened on a Long Island lacrosse field in 2006.

With 9:46 remaining in the fourth quarter, the Minutemen trailed Hofstra 10-5 in the quarterfinals of the NCAA Tournament and it looked like the Minutemen's unpleasant distinction as the best program never to make the Final Four seemed destined to continue.

But UMass scored five straight goals in regulation to tie the game and Jimmy Connolly connected 2:07 into overtime as the Minutemen completed the improbable comeback.

UMass advanced to upset Maryland in the semifinals before falling to undefeated Virginia in the final. But that stretch of play by the Minutemen was among the most magical the school has experienced in any sport.

Hockey begins to deliver - From the moment the hockey program was reinstated by UMass, it was viewed as a sleeping giant by people in the college hockey community. The location, the conference and the arena seemed to give the Minutemen potential to be a legitimate power in the sport.

Back-to-back trips to the Hockey East Final Four at the FleetCenter in 2003 and 2004 helped set the stage for the team's 2007 run to the NCAA Tournament. UMass has been a regular in the top-20 rankings and could be on the verge of taking an even bigger step going forward.

The most unlikely of runs - Nobody was calling the men's soccer program a sleeping giant.

The Minutemen were a decent Atlantic 10 program that maximized its resources and minimal scholarships.

Going into the 2007 season, UMass was picked No. 10 in the Atlantic 10. So just winning the A-10 Tournament would have made it a great season.

Beating Boston University in the first round of the NCAA Tournament was a milestone and defeating No. 1-ranked Boston College in the second round was the greatest win in program history, although it didn't hold the distinction long.

The Minutemen knocked off Central Connecticut and Illinois-Chicago to earn a spot in the NCAA Men's College Cup, soccer's version of the Final Four.

In Cary, N.C., UMass fell to Ohio State 1-0 but certainly was not overmatched.

Uncertainty at the top - At the start of this decade, Bob Marcum was still the athletic director, Bruiser Flint coached the men's basketball team and Mark Whipple was leading the football program.

Since then, the athletic department's three highest-profile positions have seemingly been in an unprecedented state of turnover.

Three football coaches led the Minutemen as Don Brown followed Whipple and Kevin Morris replaced Brown.

Four men's basketball coaches - Flint, Steve Lappas, Travis Ford and now Derek Kellogg - have walked the sidelines at the Mullins Center.

Lappas actually had three bosses, five if you include interim athletic directors Bill Strickland and Thorr Bjorn. He was hired by Marcum, and worked briefly under Ian McCaw before eventually being fired by John McCutcheon.

Three chancellors, all with different opinions on the role of athletics, further complicated things at UMass.

The passing of a legend - Jack Leaman embodied everything UMass aspires to be as an athletic department and as a school. The former coach and broadcaster was smart, classy, humble and simply great to be around. He was an ambassador for the school and a mentor for the men's and women's coaches who followed him.

It's been almost six years since Leaman died in 2004, but the athletic department, the school and the community still misses him.

Matt Vautour can be reached at mvautour@gazettenet.com. For more UMass coverage, including a UMass sports blog, go to http://www.gazettenet.com/category/sports/umass-sports.