Marc Weiszer of the Athens Banner-Herald won first place in the Associated Press Sports Editors 2020 contest in Category D Breaking News.
Weiszer will be presented a first-place plaque at the 2021 APSE Summer Conference Banquet at the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas on Aug. 18.
Aaron Williams and T.J. Holmes of Shasta County Sports finished second and Reece Waddell of the Denton Record-Chronicle was third.
A Breaking News entry is a single story that covers a sports news development that occurred in the most recent news cycle.
Sports editors in Category D submitted 33 stories. The contest is open to APSE members.
Contest chair and First Vice President Gary Potosky and fellow APSE officers — President Lisa Wilson, Second Vice President Jorge Rojas and Third Vice President Steve Hemphill prepared the entries.
Because this year’s in-person APSE Winter Conference was canceled due to the pandemic, all judging was remote during three weeks in February. Each category had a set of judges examine all entries, choose a Top 10 as a group (in some cases, the ranking includes fewer or more than 10 entries), and each of those judges ranked the finalists individually. A second set of judges in each category then also ranked those finalists.
The winner and final rankings are determined by tallying the ballots.
The winner in each category will receive a plaque at the summer conference. The second- through 10th-place finishers will receive frameable certificates.
The top 10 is listed below with links to the winning entries, and voting results.
1. Marc Weiszer, Athens Banner-Herald, 55 points, 4 first-place votes
2. Aaron Williams and T.J. Holmes, Shasta County Sports, 47 points
3. Reece Waddell, Denton Record-Chronicle, 38 points, 1 first-place vote
T4. Aaron Williams, Shasta County Sports, 37 points
T4. Ryan Black, The Manhattan Mercury, 37 points
6. Brett Hudson, The Tuscaloosa News, 30 points
7. Greg Brownell, Will Springstead, Michael Goot, The Post-Star, 25 points, 1 first-place vote
8. Tim Buckley, The Daily Advertiser, 23 points
9. Rodd Baxley, The Fayetteville Observer, 21 points
10. Tyler Martin, BamaCentral, 17 points
