From left, Mike Barber, Eric Kolenich and David Teel.

Mike Barber, Eric Kolenich and David Teel of the Richmond Times-Dispatch won first place in the 2022 Associated Press Sports Editors contest in the Division B Event Coverage category for their stories on the University of Virginia football players who were killed by a fellow student. 

APSE contest winners and top-10 finishers 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.      

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch was second for its coverage of Albert Pujols’ 700th career homer, and The Kansas City Star was third for its coverage of Kansas winning the men’s college basketball national championship. 

The Richmond Times-Dispatch will receive a plaque. The second- through 10th-place finishers will receive frameable certificates.                                                                                                         

Sports editors in Division B submitted 27 entries in Event Coverage. Each entry could include up to five articles about an event from a 24-hour period. 

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. 

Click here to join.

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. Richmond Times-Dispatch, Mike Barber, Eric Kolenich, David Teel: Virginia football players killed 1 2 3 4 5, 53 points (3 first-place votes)
  2. St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Robert Cohen, Ben Frederickson, Derrick Goold, and Benjamin Hochman: Albert Pujols’ 700th homer 1  2  3 4 5, 45 points
  3. The Kansas City Star, Gary Bedore, Vahe Gregorian, Sam McDowell, Jesse Newell, Taylor Eldridge: Kansas wins NCAA men’s basketball title 1 2 3 4 5, 35 points (1 first-place vote)
  4. IndyStar, Nathan Brown, Clark Wade, Gregg Doyel, Dana Hunsinger Benbow, Matthew VanTryon: Indy 500 1 2 3 4 5, 34 points (2 first-place votes)
  5. Las Vegas Review-Journal, Mick Akers, Ed Graney, Adam Hill, Heidi Fang: Raiders name NFL’s first Black woman team president 1 2 3 4 5, 31, points
  6. Omaha World-Herald,Sam McKewon, Evan Bland, Tom Shatel, Jimmy Watkins, Molly Ashford: Nebraska football fires Scott Frost 1 2 3 4 5, 30 points
  7. The Cincinnati Enquirer, Paul Daugherty, Kelsey Conway, Charlie Goldsmith, Kareem Elgazzar and Sam Greene: Bengals make the playoffs 1 2 3 4 5, 29 points
  8. Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Steven Johnson, Mac Engel, Dave Ammenheuser, Amanda McCoy: TCU in Fiesta Bowl 1 2 3 4 5, 27 points 

9. (tie) The Buffalo News, Staff: Bills-Chiefs in NFL playoffs 1 2 3 4 5, 23 points

9. (tie) Knoxville News Sentinel, Adam Sparks, Blake Toppmeyer, Mike Wilson and Brianna Paciorka: Tennessee beats Alabama in football 1 2 3, 23 points