By John RittenhouseAn Adrian High School senior earned a trip to the Minnesota State Class A Track and Field Championships in Blaine this weekend with her performance in the Section 3A meet in Luverne Thursday.Sarah Kruger will make her first appearance at the state classic after placing second in the 400-meter dash at the section meet.In a tight battle for second place, Kruger overcame a slight deficit in the final 20 yards of the race by leaning over the finish line in front of Pipestone Area’s Faith Tinklenberg to qualify for state.Kruger produced a personal best time of 1:00.14 during the race.The top two individual finishers, the winning relay teams and any individual or relay that meets the state-qualifying standard in place for the section event advance to the state classic.Kruger, who becomes the first AHS athlete to advance to state since 2002, will run in Friday’s 400-meter dash preliminaries at 4:25 p.m. If Kruger qualifies for the finals, she will run at 1:30 p.m. Saturday.The AHS girls, who placed 11th in team competition with 21 points, secured three more top-eight performances during the section meet.Kruger placed seventh in the 200-meter dash with a time of 27.27 in the finals.Morgan Lynn made a bid to qualify for the state meet in the 1,600-meter run before placing third. Lynn’s time of 5:23.41 bettered her school record in the event.The 3,200-meter relay team placed fourth with a time of 10:08.95. Lynn, Erica Thier, Leslie Stover and McCall Heitkamp formed the team.The 2004 season came to an end for the Adrian boys, who placed 15th as a team with 18 points at the section meet.The Dragons did earn five top-eight finishes, but no AHS athletes qualified for the state meet.Casey Knips turned in Adrian’s best effort by placing third in the discus with a toss of 142-6.Kyle Knips placed fourth in the 400-meter dash and sixth in the 200-meter dash with respective 53.18 and 23.8 times.Lee Stover finished eighth in the 800-meter run with his 2:07.2 effort.Stover, Chad Janssen, Billy Anderson and Kyle Knips placed seventh in the 1,600-meter relay in 3:39.47.