Jamaica's Sara-Beth McPherson advances to Scripps Spelling Bee semis

Jamaica's Sara-Beth McPherson has advanced to the semi-final of the Scripps National Spelling Bee competition.

McPherson is among the 48 of the 285 spellers who will appear in the semis slated for tomorrow live from the Maryland Ballroom at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland, United States.

Earlier, McPherson correctly spelt her two words in today's on-stage preliminary rounds.

Sara-Beth, who is speller #87 successfully ‘petunia’ the ‘amentia’.

She also correctly answered the vocabulary questions in rounds two and three.

She was asked "What does symbiosis refer to?" and she answered "the mutually beneficial relationship of two dissimilar organisms".

In the next round she was asked "Something in desuetude is?" and she answered "apparently abandoned".

The on stage preliminary rounds today was aired live on ESPN 3, while the semi finals for tomorrow morning will be live on ESPN 2.

The finals tomorrow night will be live on ESPN.