Roy High boys basketball coach Scott Hunt will take the same position at Morgan High, both Hunt and RHS athletic director Mike Puzey confirmed. Hunt informed the Roy boys basketball team of the news Tuesday morning.

Hunt said he didn’t intend on applying for the Morgan job when it opened, and had recently emailed the school’s athletic director to ask  whenever MHS did get a new head coach, if its boys basketball team would be interested in playing in a round robin spring tournament with Roy this weekend.

His daughter and grandkids live in Coalville, which was one of the reasons Hunt moved to the Roy job in 2019 after coaching at Bear River.

“The main thing was it’s closer to family, and it would give me a chance to be more involved with my grandkids who are getting older and really loving basketball, and I can see them play more and be involved and they can come to our games more, it’s just going to be a better family atmosphere for us and that kind of thing,” Hunt told the Standard-Examiner on Tuesday.

Hunt will replace Brad Matthews at Morgan, who stepped down after coaching the boys team for several seasons, which itself followed his several seasons as the school’s girls head coach.

Hunt is a school counselor at RHS — he accepted a counselor position at Morgan — and coached the Royals for the past four seasons with a 39-57 overall record.

This year, Roy went 15-10 and beat Mountain Ridge in the first round of the 6A state playoffs before losing to eventual state runner-up American Fork in the second round.

“I feel pretty fortunate to go (to Morgan), but I do feel pretty sad and kind of bittersweet, and feel sad to leave what we started build there at Roy. It’s a good place,” Hunt said.

Hunt has coached for more than three decades and has coached four Utah high school boys teams to state championships in his career: Panguitch (1998) and South Sevier (2006, 2011, 2012). He previously coached at Bear River (the Bears went to the 2019 4A state title game) before taking the Roy job later that spring.

Morgan, which is in 3A Region 13 with Ben Lomond and Ogden, went 17-8 this season and shared the region championship with Grantsville. The Trojans beat Carbon in the second round of the 3A playoffs before losing to Grantsville in the quarterfinals.

Next season, Region 13 will be composed of Ben Lomond, Ogden, Morgan, Grantsville, South Summit and Union.

Roy High’s coaching search is expected to begin soon. The Royals are moving to 5A Region 5 next school year along with Bonneville, Box Elder, Clearfield, Northridge, Bountiful, Viewmont and Woods Cross.

Connect with reporter Patrick Carr via email at pcarr@standard.net, Twitter @patrickcarr_ and Instagram @standardexaminersports.