Despite struggling through a good part of the first day of competition Monday, Rhea County senior Chase Sholl is still within striking distance of repeating his Class AAA decathlon state championship.
Sholl stands in third place through the first five events, rallying late to finish third in the 400-meter run and pull within 300 points of the leader with several of his better events still to come today. He began the day with a personal-best time in the 100 to finish second but didn't finish higher than fourth in any of the other three events in the first day of Spring Fling competition at Middle Tennessee State University.
"It was definitely frustrating," Sholl said. "Just not a good day, not how I wanted to start, but I'm still motivated."
The area's only other decathletes to advance to the state competition, McCallie's Hamkim McMorris and Tons Ferguson, are sixth and eighth in Division II after the first half of events.
"Our goal is to have both of them crack the top five in the final standings," Blue Tornado coach Mike Wood said. "The leader (Brentwood Academy's George Patrick) is probably the top prep decathlete in the country, so we're not even worried about trying to catch him. Our guys have some of their stronger events coming up, so that should help."
Arts & Sciences junior Lennex Walker finished second overall in the Class A/AA pentathlon, which was completed Monday evening. She finished with 3,280 points - 205 behind winner Grenetria Shell, a senior from East Nashville.
Walker won the 100-meter hurdles and shot put and finished third in the high jump but was ninth in the 800. Brainerd's Ebony Calloway, who won the 800, finished fifth overall and Signal Mountain's Aryn Sanders was sixth in A/AA points.
Contact Stephen Hargis at shargis@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6293 or on Twitter @StephenHargis.