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How Center Grove built an IHSAA football dynasty


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https://www.indystar.com/story/sports/high-school/2023/08/17/ihsaa-football-how-eric-moore-turned-center-grove-into-indiana-high-school-power-trojans-bantam/70397434007/

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BARGERSVILLE — This does not happen.

High school football programs in Indiana’s largest class do not stack championships like poker chips. You take a turn in the winner’s circle, get dragged from the mountaintop, then fight like crazy to get back there again.

For years after Warren Central’s run of four consecutive Class 5A championships from 2003 to ’06, that was the cycle. Carmel won 5A in 2007. Then Center Grove. Warren Central. Fishers. Carmel. Lawrence Central. When the Indiana High School Athletic Association added a sixth class in 2013, it followed a similar pattern. Warren Central won in 2013, then Ben Davis, Center Grove, Carmel, Ben Davis, Warren Central and Carmel.

A lot of the same programs, taking turns. Amazingly, no repeat winners in 15 years in the state’s largest class. Until now. Center Grove won 6A in 2020. They did it again, undefeated again, in 2021. Then when the door appeared to open ever-so-slightly last season for contenders like Hamilton Southeastern, Brownsburg and Cathedral, the Trojans slammed it shut with decisive wins over Cathedral in the semistate and Carroll (Fort Wayne) in the state finals.

 

On Saturday in Canton, Ohio, Center Grove will take on one of the nation’s top teams, the two-time Division I Ohio state champions, St. Edward. It marks the start of a season that could end with the Trojans holding the 6A trophy for a fourth consecutive year.

This does not happen. But it is. How does a program ascend from “one of” the best in the state to the current standard? There is more than one answer, of course, but it starts on a 38-acre patch of green grass 5 minutes south of the high school in Bargersville.

...

Nice story, if not a little cultish.

 

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