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Central's Justin Love wins the preliminary round of the 110-meter high hurdle race at the Class 4 District 8 track meet on Saturday.

KANSAS CITY — Biscuits and gravy are not exactly the breakfast of champions.

But despite the stomach discomfort it caused Central’s Justin Love, it wasn’t exactly the recipe for disaster, either.

The Indians’ senior qualified for next weekend’s sectional meet in both hurdle events Saturday during the Class 4 District 8 Track & Field Meet at Park Hill High School.

“At the beginning I felt a little woozy. I don’t know why; probably it was something I ate,” Love said after his 300-meter hurdles race, not remembering the ill-advised breakfast until a few moments later. “I just stuck with it. I heard coach yelling, ‘Keep going; it’s time to go.’ I guess I just did what I had to do.”

What he did was place third in the event with a time of 40.67 seconds, slightly off his personal best of 40.1.

“This was, like, the eighth time I ran them, ever,” said Love, who earlier qualified second in the 110-meter hurdles, pacing a Central boys team that qualified just three athletes in four events for next weekend’s meet.

Love got a good jump in the 110-meter event, but it was far from a clean run.

“Just going over the hurdles I hit a few, which made my time a little bit slower,” Love said.

Love was neck-and-neck with B.J. Smith of North Kansas City, just behind Park Hill’s Cory Beenken, but got his break when Smith hit a hurdle toward the end of the course.

“Then I just unleashed on him,” Love said.

Sophomore Mackenzie Evans’ 110-meter hurdle hopes were dashed early when she got tripped up in the preliminaries and fell, ending her bid for a return trip to the state championships in that event.

“She just clipped a hurdle,” Central girls coach Charlie Taylor said.

Evans failed to rebound in the 300-meter hurdles, finishing well out of the running, but teammate teammate Haley Simpson picked up the slack, finishing second in the event in 49.07.

But neither could match the gold-medal effort of Alexis Bates.

The junior, who missed all of last season with torn anterior and lateral cruciate ligaments in her knee, easily claimed the 100-meter dash with a time of 12.0, solidifying her comeback. She finished well ahead of Park Hill’s Kelsey Dietrich at 12.26.

“I felt like my start was good,” Bates said of her 100-meter race, “and then I just pushed it.”

Bates doubled up by running the anchor leg of the 4 x100. The foursome of Evans, Anissa DeMarr, Shelby Bratton and Bates reached the sectional with a 51.36 clocking, good enough for second place.

Also qualifying for the girls were Lauren VanCleave (fourth place, high jump), Morgan Goodrick (fourth place, 3,200), Rachel Pankau (third place, 1,600) and Maddie Adkins (fourth place, 800). All but VanCleave are freshmen.

On the boys side, junior Christian Hoffman and senior Yout Aye were the only other Central athletes to qualify. Hoffman took third in the 1,600 (4:43.01), while Aye took third in the 3,200 (10:23.8).

Central took sixth in the girls team standings with 53 points, with Liberty easily taking the title with 160 points. Central’s boys managed 37 points for an eighth-place tie in the 12-team field, topped by Liberty with 137 points.