Rhea's Sholl dramatically repeats decathlon title

Rhea County's Chase Stoll, center, is in third place in the decathlon with 3,080 points after Monday's five events at the TSSAA state competition in Murfreesboro.
Rhea County's Chase Stoll, center, is in third place in the decathlon with 3,080 points after Monday's five events at the TSSAA state competition in Murfreesboro.
photo Rhea County's Chase Stoll, center, is in third place in the decathlon with 3,080 points after Monday's five events at the TSSAA state competition in Murfreesboro.

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 keep 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 in Murfreesboro.

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 and '04.

"It feels awesome. I wish I could do it the normal way and just lead all the way, but it's good to keep people on the edge of their seat, I guess," Sholl said. "I'm so happy, and with it being my senior year I'm very satisfied with what I was able to do."

Sholl entered the final five events at Middle Tennessee State University trailing Sobota by 380 points but quickly went to work to chip away at the lead, winning the first two events of the day - the 110-meter hurdles and long jump - and then 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-meter run, to overtake the points leader. Sholl finished third in the final event with a personal-record time of 4:49.33, then watched as Sobota struggled to finish 37 seconds behind.

"I knew I was a long way behind and it wasn't a guarantee that I could win, but I was not going to stop trying," Sholl said. "I had to find it inside me and just keep pushing.

"I actually used (Sobota's) family to my advantage. When I heard them cheering I could tell how close he was to me, and that kind of pushed me to go harder."

Sholl still has three individual events in Friday's track and field state meet at MTSU - the 200-meter dash, 110 hurdles and 300 hurdles.

Contact Stephen Hargis at shargis@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6293. Follow him on Twitter @StephenHargis.

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