Place Name: First Place Contestant Name: Downers Grove South High School Entry Title: southblueprint.com Entry Credit: Yoldi Villa, Grace Lube Judge Comment: Attractive header with announcements ticker, social links, and search bar. Organized navigation bar. Homepage layout has a nice flow with trending stories and sports scores modules. Nice job showcasing Video/Audio elements, too. Story article page is well done and utilizes internal/external links, quotes, inline images, galleries, tags, polls, photo optimization with credit/source. Nice use of multimedia within articles. Love the minimal footer. Good page load times. Responsive mobile design. Passed core web vitals on mobile. Wonderful site, Blueprint!
Place Name: Second Place Contestant Name: Niles West High School Entry Title: Niles West News Entry Credit: Cora Gayford, Suha Siddiqui Judge Comment: Nice header with socials, search, and ticker. Homepage layout has some nice elements. Current updated multimedia section includes a variety of content. News articles contain internal/external links & tagging with photo optimization and credit/source. Consider adding the about & contact form to the footer. Site has responsive mobile design. Passed core web vitals for desktop & mobile. Well done, Niles West!
Place Name: Third Place Contestant Name: Stevenson High School Entry Title: Statesman Entry Credit: Hannah Diab, Samantha Gingiss Judge Comment: Clean header & homepage with a nice latest stories ticker. Organized navigation and the Letter to The Editor tab is great for reader-generated content. Landing pages/sections are consistent. Nice article page layout. Consider adding article tags to help aggregate content and improve SEO, as well as more internal/external links. Photos are optimized with proper captions and credit/source. Multimedia and games section needs updated. Mobile is responsive. Site has decent page load scores. Work on core web vitals. Great work, Statesman!
Place Name: Honorable Mention Contestant Name: Glenbrook South High School Entry Title: The Oracle Entry Credit: Meredith Bill, Reese Foxman, Phoebe Mann, Kate Rogula Judge Comment: Clean header and well-organized navigation. The web exclusives section does a good job of drawing attention to online only content. Many story articles have tags. Adding more internal/external links in articles will help with SEO, as well as optimizing photos & graphics, which helps with page speed load time. Mobile is responsive. Site passed core web vitals. Great job Glenbrook South!
Place Name: Honorable Mention Contestant Name: New Trier High School Entry Title: New Trier News Entry Credit: New Trier News Staff Judge Comment: Clean header with social icons & search bar. Organized navigation & graphic dropdowns. Sections are uniform with updated content. Article post layout is nice and utilizing tags, quotes, internal/external links, inline related articles, photos, and embedded videos. Multimedia page is current. Consider adding contact, about, and policies to the footer. Mobile is responsive. Site passed core web vitals on desktop. Well done, New Trier News!
