Review-Journal Sports wins three awards in APSE contest

UNLV Rebels football players are seen during team practice at the Bill 'Wildcat' Morris Rebel Park field on Friday, Aug. 5, 2016. (Richard Brian/Las Vegas Review-Journal) Follow @vegasphotograph

Student-athlete signings: Bishop Gorman student-athletes recently signed letters of intent. Students included Baseball: Brian Coffey, University of New Mexico; Chris Fredericksen, Pepperdine University, Calif.; Alex Tisminezky, San Diego State; Men's Basketball: Byron Frohnen, University of Texas San Antonio; Travis Rice, Northern Arizona University; Football: Chance Christian, Beloit College, Wis.; Gavin Pancirov, University of Jamestown, N.D.; McKay Wilson, Chapman University, Calif.; Softball: Sierra Mark, Oregon State University; Women's Volleyball: Mya Ellis, Grand Canyon University, Ariz.; and Men's Volleyball: Jacob Taylor, Hope International University, Calif. Special to View

Cashman Field is seen before the start of the last game of the season for the Las Vegas 51s on Saturday, Aug. 27, 2016, in Las Vegas. (Erik Verduzco/Las Vegas Review-Journal) Follow @Erik_Verduzco

The Review-Journal Sports department received three honors in the 2016 Associated Press Sports Editors contest, it was announced during the weekend, the first time the newspaper has received mutiple awards in the annual contest.

The R-J, which competes in the 75,000-175,000 circulation category, received Top 10 awards for project reporting and explanatory story. The department also received an honorable mention in the special sections category.

“The Review-Journal’s sports pages have improved exponentially under the leadership of Assistant Managing Editor Bill Bradley,” said R-J Editor-in-Chief Keith Moyer. “And these coveted awards from APSE are an excellent indicator of that.

“Our readers can expect even better things, as our talented sports writers, columnists and editors add exceptional National Hockey League coverage to their repertoire later this year.”

The contest recognizes the best in sports sections, sports writing and sports reporting each year. The organization includes representatives from most daily newspapers and major sports websites in North America,.

The award for project reporting was earned for an eight-day series known as “The Recruiting Game.” The in-depth look at college recruiting was produced by Mark Anderson, Bartt Davis, Todd Dewey, Ed Graney, Ashton Ferguson, Ron Kantowski, David Schoen and Damon Seiters.

The explanatory Top 10 was won by Betsy Helfand, who wrote in September about the inadequacies of Cashman Field in “It’s not hard to find why 51s want out of Cashman Field.”

The APSE writing awards were the first won by the Review-Journal staff since 2009 when a staff reporting project was honored. Helfand’s honor was the R-J’s first individual APSE award since 2007.

The special section that won honorable mention was June’s keepsake package from the day the Golden Knights officially joined the NHL. Reporter Steve Carp wrote the lion’s share of the articles in that section, which was the R-J’s first section award in at least 15 years.

Bill Bradley can be reached at 702-387-2909 or at bbradley@reviewjournal.com Follow @billbradleyLV on Twitter.