Members of UNC track and field fall short of goals

Eighteen seconds are all that separated Patrick Schellberg from a spot at Nationals.

The North Carolina distance runner, in his last chance to qualify for the NCAA Indoor National Championships in Fayetteville, Ark., next weekend, ran a 14:03.42 in the men’s 5,000 meters at the Notre Dame Alex Wilson Invitational on Friday.

Schellberg was one of many UNC athletes who came up just short in his pursuit for a spot in the national meet.

He said he would have needed to run a 13:45 to qualify.

“To make Nationals, I would’ve had to have a perfect day,” Schellberg said Sunday night. “And I just didn’t have it.”

The race began auspiciously enough: Schellberg stuck with the leaders through the first mile — they clocked a 4:21 — but he soon fell off the blazing pace.

“I was pretty tired from ACCs,” he said, referencing his fourth-place finish at the ACC Indoor Championships just six days prior. “The race went out pretty hard … (and) I got dropped. I was kind of left in no man’s land.”

It was notable, then, that despite falling out of the front pack, Schellberg still finished sixth. His is the second-fastest time in UNC history.

One day later and more than 400 miles south, several UNC athletes competed at Virginia Tech’s Last Chance Meet in Blacksburg, Va.

Junior sprinter Devon Carter made history by becoming the first Tar Heel since 1999 to finish the 60-meter hurdles in less than eight seconds. He crossed the line in 7.96, a time that puts him fifth all-time in North Carolina history but left him without a spot at Nationals.

Sophomore pole vaulter Cameron Overstreet, meanwhile, found herself in a situation similar to Schellberg’s. She nearly cleared 4.24 meters — 13 feet, 11 inches — a height that would have sent her to Nationals and given her a new personal-best in the event, in three separate attempts. But the bar fell each time.

“I was really close,” Overstreet said Sunday night. “I had it all three times — I just couldn’t get my hands or other body parts out of the way.”

For those runners and jumpers who didn’t qualify for next weekend’s national meet, there is time to both reflect on the indoor season and to train for outdoor competition, which begins March 22 with the Kent Taylor Invitational in Chapel Hill.

Schellberg, for one, said he hoped only one thing went differently.

“I kind of wish I had that one race where I really broke through,” he said.

Contact the desk editor at sports@dailytarheel.com.