FORSYTH, GA — What just happened? 

Anyone that watched Mary Persons beat Eastside 81-77 in the first round of the AAAA state playoffs on Friday night had to ask themselves that on their way home from the game. 

It was one of those games. 

Mary Persons was down for every minute in the second and third quarter, and by the looks of the start of the fourth quarter, the home team would be behind all the way to the final buzzer. 

But then madness snuck into the gym, had a seat on the bench and then inserted itself into the Mary Persons lineup and wrecked havoc on the final three and a half minutes of the game. The Bulldogs took their first lead since the first quarter after and one from junior Rekia Weaver. 

Then the game went into the back-and-forth wonder that only tournament play can bring. 

The teams traded buckets all the way until the 15-second mark when Cameron Holden drilled a go-ahead three-pointer for the Region 2-AAAA team. Then Holden made a steal and passed it off to Clay Moore for his 19th and 20th point of the game. 

Mary Person was up by four with six seconds left to play. But Eastside wasn’t going away quietly. Not on this night. And not on a night where Keiodre Perry was feeling it on the offensive end of the floor. The senior hit his seventh three-pointer of the game. 

Perry in a different zone in this game. The 6-foot-4 senior finished with a career-high 49 points in his final game as a high school player. The Eastside leading scorer was 18-34 from the floor, including 7-16 from three and 6-9 from the foul line.

Holden finished with a team-high 21 points in the win. Mary Persons will play St. Pius in the second round of the playoffs.  

This marks the second year in a row Mary Persons has advanced to the Sweet 16. It had been 40-plus years prior to such a feat until last year. Now in back-to-back years, the Bulldogs keep on dancing.