JACKSON — Late in the match, Warren Central’s George Wilkerson hit a shot that appeared to handcuff Andrew Bowie with its placement and speed.

Bowie nearly turned his back to the net and stuck up his racket vertically in an effort to fight it off. The Ocean Springs player not only did that, he sent it back across the court hard enough to be an easy winner.

Most of the day seemed to go like that for Wilkerson and his mixed doubles partner Audrey Jennings. The Warren Central duo turned in a solid, spirited effort, but simply ran into someone a little bit better and lost 6-1, 7-5 to Bowie and Madalyn Smelley in the quarterfinals of the Class 6A individual tournament Tuesday at Parham Bridges Park in Jackson.

The loss brought an end to Wilkerson’s memorable career at Warren Central, and signaled the start of Jennings’.

Wilkerson, a senior, reached the individual state tournament all six years he played with the team’s varsity. He won at least one match each of the last two years.

“I wanted to do better. But it’s what it is,” said Wilkerson, who will attend college at Southern Miss next year. “I’m going to keep playing. It’s just the end of my high school career. I might see if I can play intramurals at Southern. I’m always going to be a tennis player.”

Jennings, a seventh-grader, is hoping to follow a similar path. She flipped her racket in youthful frustration after sending the final shot of the game just long, but moments later seemed to realize there are better days to come.

“I’ll have five more years to come, and who knows?” Jennings said. “For my first state tournament, I’m pretty happy considering they’re probably juniors and seniors and they did win the state (team) tournament.”

Wilkerson and Jennings were seeded sixth in the 16-team mixed doubles bracket, and won their first-round match 6-4, 6-2 over Pascagoula’s Brianna Borden and Brice Gorden on Monday.

Tuesday’s quarterfinal match against No. 3 seed Ocean Springs — which Bowie and Smelley helped win the Class 6A team title on Monday — also started well. Wilkerson and Jennings took the first game. They then lost the next seven to drop the first set and put themselves in a hole in the second.

“We played really tight that first set. The second set we did better,” Wilkerson said. “We got more loose, but we weren’t consistent. We needed to get more returns in. The first set, double faults were a problem. We did better with that in the second.”

Wilkerson and Jennings regrouped and won three of the next four games to pull even 3-3 in the second set. The sixth game featured three deuce points before the WC pair pulled it out.

They also staved off four match points in winning the 10th game to once again even things at 5-all, and sidestepped two more in the final game. Bowie and Smelley were too strong in the end, though. Bowie closed out the 11th game with an ace, and then the Ocean Springs squad closed it out in the next game.

“Ocean Springs is just a really good team. We played our best, but we got beat. It’s going to happen,” Jennings said.

Bowie and Smelley played again Tuesday afternoon in the semifinals, but lost 6-7, 6-1, 6-2 to Oxford’s Ryan Mounce and Savannah Nagle.

Mounce and Nagle will play Madison Central’s Walker Ellis and Ann Cabot Stockett in the finals Wednesday.

Wilkerson and Jennings had the longest stay of Warren Central’s three entries in the individual state tournament.

In the first round of the boys’ singles tournament on Monday, Ian Gordon lost 6-0, 6-0 to No. 1 seed Bo Nash of Oxford.

Nash will play Tupelo’s Eric Huey on Wednesday for the boys singles title.

In girls’ doubles, WC’s Laney Smith and Taylor Smith fell 6-1, 6-1 to Gulfport’s Dervyn Alexander and Laurel Dennis in the first round on Monday.