JACKSON — For two agonizing minutes, Pearl played an annoying game of keepaway against Warren Central. Each second that ticked off the clock drained a little more life from the Lady Vikes’ season, yet they seemed powerless to stop it.

That game ended, eventually, and moments later so did an era of Warren Central girls’ basketball. Pearl scored the game’s last five points and held WC scoreless for the last 2 minutes and 45 seconds as it won 64-58 in the quarterfinals of the MHSAA Class 6A tournament on Saturday.

“It’s really, really bad because we were so close. We thought we had this game in our hand. We thought we were controlling the game. As the game went on they got their momentum back and it was a dogfight pretty much the entire game,” Warren Central senior center Amber Gaston said. “You have to work really hard, especially when you have the lead, to keep those leads and close out the game. You can’t just give it up.”

Jayla Alexander led Pearl with 26 points and Libby Mosley scored 19. Alexander was 12-for-14 from the free throw line.

Aniya Sanders led Warren Central with 16 points and nine rebounds. Da’Sha McGloster had a double-double with 10 points and 10 rebounds, and Gaston had nine points and six rebounds while battling foul trouble the whole game.

Pearl (30-2) advanced to the semifinals to face Starkville (26-2) Wednesday at the Mississippi Coliseum in Jackson. Starkville beat St. Martin 56-43 in another quarterfinal Saturday morning.

The other semifinal on Wednesday will be Murrah vs. Oak Grove.

Warren Central (22-9) had its deepest playoff run in a decade — as well as the high school careers of six seniors — come to an end. The Lady Vikes reached the Jackson portion of the tournament for the first time since 2007, but have not won a state championship since 1989 and not reached the title game since 1996.

This senior class went 78-43 in four varsity seasons. The four years before they arrived, Warren Central was 35-63 and did not win more than 10 games in any season.

“I’m proud of them for these four years they’ve given us. They changed the face of Warren Central basketball. Maybe since they changed the face we can continue on with that change,” Martin-Glass said.

The last three minutes of Saturday’s game were an exercise in agony for the Lady Vikes. Alexander was fouled on a 3-point attempt and hit all three free throws to give Pearl a 59-56 lead. WC answered with a pair of free throws by Dominique Caldwell with 2:45 to play, but did not score again.

Pearl dribbled 2:10 of the remaining 2:45 off the clock before WC was finally forced to foul. The Lady Pirates nearly turned it over twice, but both times managed to corral wayward passes just inside the boundaries.

In the final 30 seconds, Pearl went 5-for-6 at the foul line to close it out while Warren Central missed a 3-pointer and committed two turnovers on its last three possessions.

The final six-point margin was Pearl’s biggest lead of the game. The largest lead for either team was seven, which Warren Central held just before halftime. Alexander made a 3-pointer at the buzzer to cut that to four, however, and give Pearl some momentum back heading into the break.

It was also one of many small moments over the course of the game that eventually derailed Warren Central at the end.

The Lady Vikes committed 20 turnovers and were 13-for-25 at the free throw line. Four players, including Gaston and Sanders, finished with at least three fouls. That limited their playing time in some cases — Gaston picked up her third late in the first half and had to sit out large chunks of the second — and effectiveness in others.

Part of Pearl’s ability to dribble so much time off the clock at the end of the game flowed from Warren Central’s foul trouble. Gaston and Sanders both had four fouls by then and seemed reluctant to pick up their last until it became absolutely necessary.

Sanders was the one who finally fouled to stop the clock with 35.5 seconds remaining.

“I thought we didn’t handle the pressure well early and made some ill-advised turnovers we didn’t have to make,” Martin-Glass said. “Their running game interrupted our girls some, because we haven’t run that much in a game. They pressure you, and then when you want to take a break they were still running. Teams that run, if you’re not a running team that’s going to hurt you. We missed layups and they made theirs. Today was just a day where they had a better game than we did.”