Mike Berardino and Tom Noie of the South Bend Tribune in Indiana won first place in the Division C event coverage category of the 2025 Associated Press Sports Editors contest.
Berardino and Noie’s winning entry was for their coverage of the Georgia-Notre Dame Sugar Bowl, which was postponed after a truck plowed into crowds on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, killing 15 people less than 24 hours before scheduled kickoff time.
APSE contest winners will be honored at the 2026 APSE Summer Conference banquet July 18 at the Crystal Gateway Marriott in Arlington, Va. Registration for the conference is open; you can register right here.
Berardino and Noie will receive a first-place plaque. The second- through 10th-place finishers will receive frame-worthy certificates.
Sports editors submitted 41 entries in the Division C event coverage category. Each entry was permitted to contain up to five pieces, along with supplementary optional content for judges to consider. Contest chair Perryn Keys and APSE officers Paul Barrett, Erik Hall and Tony Maluso prepared the entries.
Contest results: Digital, print and podcasts | Writing and photography
Judges convened in late February, in person at the APSE Winter Conference in Las Vegas and remotely around the nation, to select the top entrants, reading 180 total pieces in the category. The committee determined 10 finalists, with each judge ranking the entries in order from 1 to 10. The final 10 were given to a second judging group in late February and March, ranking the entries from Nos. 1 to 10 in the same fashion.
The final rankings are determined by tallying the ballots.
The top 10 are listed, with first-place votes in parentheses, along with links to the winning entries.
The contest is open to APSE members. Click here to join.
1. Mike Berardino, Tom Noie; South Bend Tribune (5) 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
2. Ben Roberts, John Clay, Mark Story, Cameron Drummond, Brian Simms; Lexington Herald-Leader (1) 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
3. Michael Niziolek, The Hearld-Times (Bloomington, Ind.) 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
4. Kevin Brockway, Noah Ram; The Gainesville Sun 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
5. Scott Richey, Bob Asmussen; The News-Gazette (Champaign, Ill.) 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
6. Brent Wagner, Amie Just, Justin Wan; Lincoln Journal Star 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
7. Michal Dwojak, Joshua Welge, Joe Aguilar; Northwest Herald (Crystal Lake, Ill.) 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
8. Will Cheney, David Westin, Doug Stutsman; Augusta Chronicle 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
9. John Bednarowski, Marietta Daily Journal 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
10. Staff, Capital Gazette (Annapolis, Md.) 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
