Bennett Durando of the Montgomery Advertiser won first place in the Associated Press Sports Editors 2021 contest in the Division D Long Feature category.

Durando will be presented a first-place plaque  at the 2022 APSE Summer Conference banquet at The Alexander Hotel in Indianapolis on June 18.  Click here to register for the conference.      

Brett Vito of the Denton Record-Chronicle finished second, and Matt Schuckman of Muddy River Sports took third.                                                                                               

Sports editors in Division D submitted 40 Long Feature entries. 

Contest chair Jorge Rojas and fellow APSE officers Gary Potosky, Naila-Jean Meyers and Ed Reed prepared the entries. The contest is open to APSE members.

Click here to join.

In February, judges at the APSE Winter Conference in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., selected a top 10, with each judge ranking the entries in order from 1 to 10 on a separate ballot. 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 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 voting results and links to the winning entries.

1. Bennett Durando, Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser, 55 points (3 first-place votes)

2. Brett Vito, Denton (Tex.) Record-Chronicle, 43 points

3. Matt Schuckman, Muddy River Sports (Quincy, Ill.), 42 points

4. David Thompson, The Fayetteville (N.C.) Observer, 40 points (1 first-place vote)

5. Marc Weiszer, Athens (Ga.) Banner-Herald, 37 points (1 first-place vote)

6. Chris Kwiecinski, The Spectrum & Daily News (St. George, Utah), 32 points (1 first-place vote)

7. Michael Katz , Laramie (Wyo.) Boomerang, 31 points

8. Mitchell Forde, PowerMizzou.com, 22 points

9. Peter L. Scamardo II, Victoria (Tex.) Advocate, 15 points

10. Jane Allison Havsy, Daily Record (Rockaway, N.J.), 13 points

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