CPA senior William Stout won his second consecutive Class A-AA state decathlon championship on Tuesday at MTSU’s Dean A. Hayes Stadium.
MURFREESBORO – Brentwood Academy’s George Patrick and Christ Presbyterian Academy’s William Stout both captured their second consecutive decathlon state championship Tuesday at MTSU’s Dean Hayes Stadium.
Patrick came into Tuesday with a 409-point lead in the Division II competition and went on to win the 110M hurdles, the shot put and the high jump, despite not setting any personal records on his way to a 7,324-point total.
With four events still to go this week, blistering feet and a sore left ankle, Patrick didn’t push for personal records Tuesday in order to put himself in a better position to continue his winning ways at the team track meet.
“If I had big PRs without emotionally selling out, then I’d be happy with it,” the Texas-signee said. “But I’m also extremely happy with scoring what I scored today.”
Joining Patrick on the podium from Brentwood Academy Tuesday were teammates Thomas Ozburn (sixth) and Cam Johnson (seventh).
Franklin Road Academy’s Drake Mitchell looked primed for second heading into the final event, but Montgomery Bell Academy senior and UNC-signee Will Eskew won the 1500M by 16:07 seconds to slip by Mitchell and take home the silver.
“We were doing some calculations under our tent to see how many points it was going to take to catch up to Drake after his high jump,” Eskew said. We figured out it had to be about 16 seconds so I knew I was going to have to run pretty fast.”
It was a special moment for Patrick and Eskew.
“Will is my training partner outside of school,” Patrick said. “To see Will do that is awesome.”
“That’s been the main goal this whole year,” Eskew added. “We know George is top in the nation and he’s going to put up 7,000 points without blinking. To finish first and second with George is like a dream come true.”
Stout also picked up his second consecutive state title after starting strong and taking first in two of the final five events in the A/AA tournament while also setting two new personal records.
Midstate sweeps TSSAA pentathlon
“Overall, I’m ecstatic,” Stout said. “It’s about 150-point PR from sectionals and I’m just very happy to win.”
The senior Wofford-signee entered the day with a 317-point lead and won the 110M hurdles and the shot put, which he set a personal record for, then added another PR in the long jump, despite finishing third on his way to a 6,272-point toal.
“In long jump, I had never gone over 19.2 in a decathlon and I went 20.4,” he said. “So that was huge for me.”
The Class AAA competition was the only class without a Midstate champion.
Of the six Midstaters in the mix, Independence’s Nate Johnson fared the best, finishing fourth ahead of teammate Taylor Sheffield (eighth), Cookeville’s Logan Lamb (fifth), Brentwood’s Kyle Costner (sixth) and Garrett Lee (10th), as well as Lebanon’s Will Earps (ninth).
Reach Sam Brown at 615-259-8232 and on Twitter @SamBrownTN.
Brentwood Academy senior George Patrick won his second consecutive Division II decathlon championship on Tuesday at MTSU’s Dean A. Hayes Staidum.