Group Judges Times Sections Among Best

The Times daily sports sections were listed among the top 10 in the country Thursday by judges of the Associated Press Sports Editors.

The annual national contest--divided into circulation categories of 50,000 and below; 50,001-175,000 and 175,001 and above--has section categories for daily, Sunday and special sections. The Times’ Orange County Edition was given honorable mention--top 20--for its special baseball section.

In writing categories, Times top-10 honorees included Danny Robbins and Mark Heisler in the news category for respective stories on Notre Dame’s Demetrius DuBose and the post-Olympic return plans of the Lakers’ Magic Johnson; Robbins and Elliott Almond in the investigative category for stories on possible NCAA violations at the University of Washington and Julie Cart and Theresa Munoz in the enterprise category for stories about the dynamics of men coaching women and about the perception of an anti-lesbian backlash in women’s basketball.

Other Southern California sections honored included the Orange County Register, top 10 in large paper special sections and honorable mention in daily and Sunday sections; Oceanside Blade-Citizen, honorable mention in small-paper dailies, and the South Bay Daily Breeze, honorable mention in middle-sized dailies.

Area writers honored with top 10 status included Brian Golden of the Antelope Valley Press in small-paper column writing; Ron Rapoport of the L.A. Daily News in large-paper feature writing; Eric Noland of the Daily News in large-paper news; Bill Plunkett of the Palm Springs Desert Sun in small-paper enterprise; Bob Cox, Brian Patterson and Daniel Lewis of the Daily Breeze in middle-paper enterprise and Mark Alesia of the Daily News in large-paper enterprise.

The section judging listed no order of finish, simply the top 10. The writing finalists will be ranked first through fifth and honorable mention by a board of final judges next month.