The first two times Grace Academy traveled to Murfreesboro for the Class A boys’ state basketball tournament, the Golden Eagles brought home a silver ball.

This year they’re going for gold.

After following a surprise run to the state championship game in 2004 with another runner-up finish in 2006, Grace’s program has grown from Cinderella team to state contender. The Golden Eagles hope to make the next step — to state champion — when they begin their third trip with this afternoon’s quarterfinal game against Knoxville Grace.

“The first time was new and exciting, and we were almost just happy to be there,” coach Jon Mattheiss said. “The second time we thought we’d be there, and our goal the whole year was to win a state championship. This year, from the time we went to summer camp, we really felt like we had the talent to go to state, and that was our focus all year.”

The Golden Eagles also had the hunger to return to the state tournament after their last two seasons ended with region semifinal losses. The only player remaining from their 2006 state team is junior Terrell Church, who played on the varsity squad his eighth-grade season.

“It was just fun,” Church said. “We had a good team that year. It was a good experience for me as an eighth-grader. It’s been kind of hard because I wanted to be able to go back and experience that again, but it’s taken us some time to build our team back up.”

Although Grace’s two previous state teams featured the same core group of players, this year’s Golden Eagles share some common ground with their predecessors.

“They had great chemistry, good balance, and we definitely had an attitude that we could win the thing,” Mattheiss said. “This team has the same attitude but a different makeup. This is probably the quickest team I’ve ever had. The similarities are that every time we’ve gone, we’ve had good, quality guards and a good post player. There’s always been a good balance of inside and outside game, which I think is important at the state tournament.”

Those guards include Church and seniors Brandon Herman, the team’s leading scorer, and transfer Fuquan Harper, who is playing his first full season with the Golden Eagles. In the middle is 6-foot-9 Charleston Southern signee Patrick Shaughnessy, another transfer in his third year at Grace.

Having followed the Golden Eagles’ state runs while he was in middle school, Shaughnessy said he’s excited and nervous to be making his first trip to the tournament with a chance to bring home the school’s first championship.

“I think it’ll be a good experience,” he said. “We’ll bring a lot of fans, and the team will be ready. I’m confident with the way we’re playing that we can make a very good run. We came together as a team during the second half of the season, and I think we’re playing better than we’ve ever played since I’ve been here.”

With their midseason slump behind them, the Golden Eagles now have come full circle from when they attended summer camp at MTSU with the goal of returning to Murfreesboro this week. Now all that’s left for Grace is to finish the tournament with the win that has eluded the team twice before.

“We’re obviously in a tough bracket, but there definitely are expectations,” Mattheiss said. “There are the ones that we put on ourselves, and then there are expectations from fans and the school and everybody else. But it’s OK, because we’ve had those all year. These guys keep rising to the occasion. We have some outstanding young men.”

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