Chase Sholl's flair for dramatic finishes seems to know no end. One year after winning the Class AAA decathlon state championship by limping through the final three events to narrowly hold on to his lead, the Rhea County senior rallied from a seemingly insurmountable first-day deficit to defend his title with a blistering performance in the final five events.
Sholl finished first in three events Tuesday, was third in one and fourth in another to total 6,568 points in bettering Bearden's Jacob Sobota's 6,468.
Sholl, a University of Tennessee signee, becomes only the second area athlete to win consecutive decathlons, joining former McCallie star and Olympian Michael Bingham, who won Division II titles in 2003-04.
Sholl, entered Tuesday's final five events at Middle Tennessee State University trailing Sobota by more than 300 points, but quickly went to work to chip away at the deficit, winning the first two events of the day - the 110-meter hurdles and long jump - then finished tied for first in the high jump and was fourth in the shot put. He still needed to beat Sobota by more than 20 seconds in the final event, the 1500 meters, to overtake the points leader. Sholl finished third in the final event with a time of 4:49.33, then watched as Sobota struggled to finish 37 seconds behind.
Sholl still has three more individual events to compete in during Friday's state meet at MTSU - the 200 meters, 110-meter hurdles and 300-meter hurdles.
Contact Stephen Hargis at shargis@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6293. Follow him on Twitter @StephenHargis.