Chattanooga: Hole too deep: Bees beat Grace

An eight-point loss in its own tournament wasn’t the way the Grace Academy boys’ basketball team wanted to start the new year.

But by the end of Friday night’s game against Upperman in the Golden Eagle Classic, the host team had to feel fortunate it wasn’t worse.

After a slow start for both teams, the Golden Eagles trailed by 22 points in the third quarter before rallying to within six in the fourth and eventually falling 73-65.

“It’s not an excuse, but we haven’t played since the 21st and they just won a tournament, and I think that made a big difference,” Grace coach Jon Mattheiss said. “We told the kids we couldn’t afford to come out slow, and sure enough, that’s what we did.

“We dug ourselves a hole, and although I’m proud of our guys for getting back in it, you can’t get down 20 points to a smart, solid team like that and expect to get it all back in one quarter.”

The Golden Eagles held a brief lead early in the second period, but Upperman ended the quarter on a 12-2 run and took a 33-19 lead into the break. Two third-quarter 3-pointers from Michael Taylor helped the Bees build a 54-32 advantage before Brandon Herman ended the period with a 3 for Grace.

“They kind of kicked it in gear, and we looked like we were sleepwalking through the first half,” Mattheiss said. “The lack of effort was really kind of embarrassing.”

The Golden Eagles’ Fuquan Harper scored all six of his points in the first 2:30 of the fourth quarter, and his third basket started a 17-3 run for his team. Grace was within 65-58 with 2:32 remaining after two free throws from Terrell Church, who finished with 16 points, but was held scoreless over the next minute.

Upperman scored seven points in that span, including five of Dustin Baxter’s team-high 22. Two of those came at the free-throw line after a technical foul was called on Grace (8-3), which trailed by 10 or more until a last-second shot from Herman.

“We’ve got to start coming out ready to play,” said Herman, who scored 27 points. “This whole season, we haven’t played a whole game. We’ll play for one quarter, or two or three. We’ve been lucky enough to win eight games, but we’ve got to learn to play for four quarters.”