In track and field, a hundredth of a second can make the difference.

Meadowview Academy’s four-man track team found that out the hard way in Thursday afternoon preliminaries of the Alabama Independent School Association’s (AISA) State Meet, hosted by Morgan Academy at Bloch Park.

The Trojans four-man, 800-meter relay team fell a hundredth of a second short of qualifying for the finals Friday afternoon.

Noah Reid, Jonathan McQueen, Royce Kuhn and John Bender ran the relay in 1:44.49, good enough for 10th place overall.

Only the top eight teams qualified for the finals. The eighth-place team finished at 1:44.48 to move on and send Meadoview’s squad home.

The team finished 12th in the 400-meter relay.

McQueen was the only Trojan runner to advance to the finals.

He ran a personal best time of 24.42 seconds in the 200-meters.

Illness struck Central Christian Academy’s team so coach Dayton Dawkins was short handed.

CCA had two athletes qualify for the finals. Javaris Burden qualified in the discus and Jerome Deese advanced in the 800-meters.

The host Morgan Academy team put several more athletes on the field and will be well represented on Friday.

In the girls, coach Janice Lyon’s team will have their 800-meter and 400-meter relay teams running again.

In the 100-meter low hurdles, Blaire Wood took second and Ginger Gaines finished fourth overall to advance to Friday’s finals.

Allie Pilcher advanced with a fourth-place finish in the 100-meter dash.

Allison Peak and Whitney Casey each advanced in the 400-meter dash.

Mallory Jones and Sam Yeager moved on in the 800-meter run.

Pilcher advanced in the 200-meter dash with teammate Elizabeth Waters.

Jones took fifth in the finals for the 3200-meter run.

In the field events, Katie Taylor placed second and Elizabeth Elliot took third in the shot put to advance to the finals.

Elliot was first in discus and Taylor placed fourth going into Friday.

Jones advanced with a fourth-place finish in long jump and Waters took fifth.

For the boy’s, Morgan’s Walt Harrison and Matthew Casey advanced to the finals in shot put.

Clay Rives advanced in discus.

The 4-by-100-meter relay team of Josh McAteer, Owen Peak, Robert Armstrong and Travis Lyon will run for the title on Friday.

Trent Friday moved on to Friday’s events in the 110-meter high hurdles. Friday and Trent Collins advanced in the 300-meter intermediate hurdles.

Torrey Trawick will get to run for the state title in the 800-meter run.

The 1600-meter relay team of Eric Pilcher, McAteer, Allen Callaway and Peak also moved on to Friday’s events. Rand Smith tied for fifth in the finals of the high jump held Thursday afternoon.