Michael Niziolek of The Roanoke Times won first place in the 2021 Associated Press Sports Editors contest in the Division C Beat Writing category for his coverage of Virginia Tech football.
Niziolek 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.
Ben Portnoy of The State finished second, and Michael Lananna of The State took third.
Sports editors in Division C submitted 42 Beat Writing 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.
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.
Beat writing is a collection of five pieces by a single author that shows authoritative, newsy and innovative coverage of a beat. Each writer was required to submit one breaking news story, one event or game coverage story and one enterprise story. The final two pieces were left to the writer’s discretion and could include multimedia presentations.
The top 10 is listed below with voting results and links to the winning entries.
1. Michael Niziolek, The Roanoke Times 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 55 points (2 first-place votes)
2. Ben Portnoy, The State (Columbia, S.C.) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 52 points (2 first-place votes)
3. Michael Lananna, The State (Columbia, S.C.) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 42 points (1 first-place vote)
4. Nick Suss, Clarion Ledger (Jackson, Miss.) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 38 points
5. Theo DeRosa, The Commercial Dispatch (Columbus, Miss.) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 35 points (1 first-place vote)
T6. Theo Lawson, The Spokesman-Review (Spokane, Wash.) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 26 points
T6. Seth Rorabaugh, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 26 points
8. Clayton Freeman, The Florida Times-Union (Jacksonville) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 24 points
9. Dan Spears, Wilmington (N.C.) StarNews 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 18 points
10. Sean Hammond, Northwest Herald (Crystal Lake, Ill.) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 14 points
