Aaron McFarling of The Roanoke Times and Luke Zahlmann of The Gazette in Colorado Springs tied for first place in the 2022 Associated Press Sports Editors contest in the Division C Short Feature category.
APSE contest winners will be honored at the 2023 APSE Summer Conference banquet at the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas on July 12. Click here to register for the conference, which begins on July 9 and will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of APSE.
Nick Suss of the Clarion Ledger in Jackson, Miss., was third.
McFarling and Zahlmann will receive a plaque. The third- through 10th-place finishers will receive frameable certificates.
Sports editors in Division C submitted 49 Short Feature entries, which were 1,150 words or less.
Contest chair Naila-Jean Meyers and fellow APSE officers Jorge Rojas, Dan Spears and Ed Reed prepared the entries. The contest is open to APSE members.
Contest results: Sections, digital, video | Writing and photography
In February, judges at the APSE Winter Conference in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., and remote judges around the country selected a top 10, with each judge ranking the entries in order from 1 to 10. Entries were given 10 points for a first-place vote, nine points for second and so on down to one point for a 10th-place vote. The final 10 were given to a second judging group, which ranked the entries 1-10 in the same fashion.
The top 10 is listed below with voting results and links to the winning entries.
1. (tie) Aaron McFarling, The Roanoke Times 44 points (2 first-place votes)
1. (tie) Luke Zahlmann, The Gazette (Colorado Springs) 44 points
3. Nick Suss, Clarion Ledger (Jackson, Miss.), 39 points (2 first-place votes)
4. Chapel Fowler, The State (Columbia, S.C.) 35 points
5. Katherine Fominykh, Capital Gazette (Annapolis), 32 points
6. (tie) Shad Powers, The Desert Sun (Palm Springs, Calif.), 29 points
6. (tie) Wynston Wilcox, The Commercial Appeal (Memphis), 29 points
8 Matt Vautour, MassLive.com/The Republican 28 points (2 first-place votes)
9. Joey LoMonaco, The Free Lance-Star (Fredericksburg, Va.) 27 points
10. Katie Windham, BamaCentral 23 points