Trent Moorhead takes over Center Grove boys basketball after Hahn exits

Center Grove chose a proven builder to handle one of Johnson County’s most visible jobs, turning the boys basketball program over to Trent Moorhead after Zach Hahn stepped down following 12 seasons that reshaped the Trojans’ standard. Hahn left with a 176-118 record, five sectional championships, two regional titles, a semistate semifinal appearance, a semistate championship game appearance and seven Johnson County Tournament crowns, including the school’s record-setting 25th county title in the 2024-25 season.

That is the bar Moorhead inherits, and it is a high one. Center Grove finished 8-13 this season and exited the tournament with a 45-32 loss to Southport in the sectional opener at Columbus North High School, a reminder that the program is not being handed over from a position of comfort. It is being reset by design, with the expectation that the next coach can keep the Trojans relevant in the county race and back in the postseason picture quickly.

Moorhead, 30, arrives with a résumé that suggests he is built for that assignment. In four seasons at Hauser High School, his teams went 79-27 and reached the Class A semistate in each of the past two years. Just as important, the numbers show a coach who knows how to create a floor, not just a flash. His Hauser teams held opponents to between 41.4 and 48.9 points per game, a defensive profile that travels when the shots do not.

That edge comes from deep Indiana roots. Moorhead graduated from South Ripley High School in 2014, spent three seasons as Franklin Community High School’s junior varsity coach from 2018 to 2021, then coached one season as Hauser’s JV coach before being promoted. His family tree is loaded with hoops ties: his paternal grandfather, Gus Moorhead, was inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame in 1980 after a 253-117 career at Versailles and South Ripley; his father, Rob Moorhead, is South Ripley’s superintendent and previously coached boys basketball at South Dearborn; and his older brother, Brad Moorhead, coaches at South Dearborn.

Moorhead also said he is comfortable with the pressure that comes with a 4A job like Center Grove. That matters here. This is not a program in search of an identity. It already has one. The question now is whether Moorhead can preserve the standard Hahn built while putting his own defensive stamp on a roster and a county race that will start judging him immediately. He and his family plan to relocate to Johnson County later this spring or sometime this summer, and the offseason has already become the first test of the new era.