Forty-one spellers advanced to the finals of the Scripps National Spelling Bee out of a field of 516, by far the biggest in the 93-year history of the competition. But none of the four Minnesotans competing Wednesday made the cut.

Ainsley Boucher, Ava Becken, Sarah Lahti and Peter Clementson were eliminated in Wednesday's preliminaries. The finalists were announced after two days of onstage spelling during which nearly 200 spellers were eliminated for getting words wrong.

Scores on a written spelling and vocabulary test determined who advanced to the finals. There were no perfect scores on the test.

Bee executive director Paige Kimble said, "We thought it was an easy test. We were wrong." The top scorers were Shruthika Padhy, Aisha Randhawa and Karthik Nemmani.

Thursday's finals are telecast live during the day on ESPN2 and that evening on ESPN.

STAFF and WIRE REPORTS