Jacob Unruh of The Oklahoman won first place in the 2021 Associated Press Sports Editors contest in the Division B Short Feature category.
Unruh 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.
Jim Polzin of the Wisconsin State Journal finished second, and Chip Alexander of the News & Observer took third.
Sports editors in Division B submitted 70 entries in Short Feature.
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.
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. Jacob Unruh, The Oklahoman (Oklahoma City), 57 points (4 first-place votes)
2. Jim Polzin, Wisconsin State Journal (Madison), 42 points
3. Chip Alexander, News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.), 39 points (1 first-place vote)
4. Darren Cooper, The Record (Bergen, N.J.), 38 points
5. Rick Cantu, Austin American-Statesman, 36 points (1 first-place vote)
6. Andy Larsen, Salt Lake Tribune, 34 points
7. Mike Barber, Richmond Times-Dispatch, 29 points
8. Aria Gerson, The Tennessean (Nashville), 22 points
9. Gentry Estes, The Tennessean (Nashville), 19 points
10. Mike Wilson, Knoxville News Sentinel, 14 points
