Andrew Carter of The Charlotte Observer won first place in the Associated Press Sports Editors 2020 contest in Category B Breaking News.

Carter will be presented a first-place plaque at the 2021 APSE Summer Conference Banquet at the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas on Aug. 18.

Eric Walden, Gordon Monson, Kurt Kragthorpe, Julie Jag, Josh Newman of The Salt Lake Tribune finished second and Ron Kantowski and Rick Velotta of the Las Vegas Review-Journal placed third.

A Breaking News entry is a single story that covers a sports news development that occurred in the most recent news cycle.

Sports editors in Category B submitted 54 stories. The contest is open to APSE members. 

Click here to join.

Contest chair and First Vice President Gary Potosky and fellow APSE officers — President Lisa Wilson, Second Vice President Jorge Rojas and Third Vice President Steve Hemphill prepared the entries.

Because this year’s in-person APSE Winter Conference was canceled due to the pandemic, all judging was remote during three weeks in February. Each category had a set of judges examine all entries, choose a Top 10 as a group (in some cases, the ranking includes fewer or more than 10 entries), and each of those judges ranked the finalists individually. A second set of judges in each category then also ranked those finalists.

The winner and 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 links to the winning entries, and voting results.

1. Andrew Carter, Charlotte Observer, 53 points, 4 first-place votes

2. Eric Walden, Gordon Monson, Kurt Kragthorpe, Julie Jag, Josh Newman, The Salt Lake Tribune, 39 points, 1 first-place vote

3. Ron Kantowski and Rick Velotta, Las Vegas Review-Journal, 38 points

4. Dana Hunsinger Benbow, Indianapolis Star, 37 points

5. Nick Moyle, San Antonio Express-News, 35 points

6. Brian Linder, PennLive/The Harrisburg Patriot-News, 34 points

7. J. Michael , Indianapolis Star, 26 points, 1 first-place vote

8. David Jones, PennLive/The Harrisburg Patriot-News, 23 points

9. Michael Phillips, Richmond Times-Dispatch, 21 points

10. Kyle Rowland, The Blade (Toledo), 18 points

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