Jason Malmont of The Carlisle Sentinel won first place in the Associated Press Sports Editors 2018 contest in Feature Photo for the D Division.
His photo, of postgame reaction after a high school girls soccer playoff game, edged out Shmuel Thaler of the Santa Cruz Sentinel for the honor.
Sports editors in the D Division submitted 29 feature photo entries. The contest is open to APSE members. Click here to join.
Contest chair Todd M. Adams and fellow APSE officers John Bednarowski, Lisa Wilson and Dan Spears prepared entries, which included online links to stories for the first time this year.
In February, preliminary judges at the APSE Winter Conference in Orlando, Fla., and off-site around the country, selected a top 10, with each judge ranking the entries in order from 1 to 10 separately on a secret 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 winner and final rankings are determined by tallying the ballots.
Malmont will be presented a first-place plaque at the 2019 APSE Summer Conference Banquet at the Omni CNN Center in Atlanta on June 19. The second- through 10th-place writers will receive frameable certificates.
Feature photo entries were the best single sports feature photo by the photographer, with judging based on the quality of the photo.
The top 10 is listed below with links to the winning entries..
1. Jason Malmont, The Carlisle Sentinel, 33 points (2 first-place votes)
2. Shmuel Thaler, Santa Cruz Sentinel, 31 points
3. Antranik Tavitian, Columbia Missourian, 29 points
4. Yfat Yossifor, San Angelo Standard-Times, 26 points
5. Blaine McCartney, Wyoming Tribune Eagle, 22 points
6 (tie). Jacob Byk, Wyoming Tribune Eagle, 21 points (1)
6 (tie). Gary Cosby, The Tuscaloosa News, 21 points (1)
8. Zack Wajsgras, The Daily Progress, Charlottesville, Va., 17 points
9. Jennifer Codeluppi, Mon Valley Independent, Monessen, Pa., 12 points
10. Kenneth Cummings, Jackson Sun (picture 30), 8 points
