Under new head coach Ben Chamberlain, the Bingham boys’ volleyball team captured their first 6A state title at UVU Saturday, May 10 against Mountain Ridge. 

Bingham blasted the Sentinels in the first set by the score of 25-10 and took the second, 25-19. 

Would the Miners make a little history with a three-set sweep and win their first state title, ever? 

The Miners gave it their all, and maybe nerves creeped in with the first state championship in school history in plain sight, but the Sentinels grabbed the third set, 23-25. 

In the fourth set, Bingham wasn’t handed a trophy, by any means. Mountain Ridge played the role of rival very well in a slugfest that the Miners captured, 25-18, to win their first state title in boys’ volleyball by the final score of 25-10, 25-19, 23-25 and 25-18. 

“6A STATE CHAMPS 2025,” Chamberlain said. “Way to get it done, congratulations boys, well deserved.” 

For the new head coach, this was his first state title when in charge of a high school varsity team. Chamberlain won several as an assistant on Olympus High’s boys volleyball teams. 

You could see how the Miners were going to approach this state tournament during the 6A semifinals against Lehi earlier on May 10. 

For the entire tournament, the opposing JV squads absorbed the Miners varsity’s kills in warmups as volleyballs sprayed across two courts and up into the bleachers where the crowds sat. 

In a way, it was like you were watching Shaq and The Super Lakers until the matches started—except instead of delivering dunks Miners’ players were doling out punishment, pummeling the poor court with all their might. 

Bingham [25-4, 9-1 Region 2] stuffed a kill from Lehi to start the first set and yet dropped five of the next six points. After a timeout, Bingham went to work, executing vicious kills.

The Miners went on an 8-1 run before Lehi scored a point. Methodically, Bingham destroyed the Pioneers’ will and yet Lehi climbed back in the set before the Miners put their opponents away, 25-18. 

In the second set, Bingham might have been blasting kills so hard that a piece of the court pried loose and had to be repaired while Lehi led, 21-22. 

When play resumed, the Miners took the second set with a kill from the top of the court, 27-25. 

That set the Miners up for a shot at a sweep. Would they reach out and grab it by the grooves in the volleyball? 

For context, Bingham swept Corner Canyon in the 6A state quarterfinals Friday May 9, 25-21, 25-19 and 25-20. 

To begin the state tournament May 9, the Miners also blasted Weber in three straight sets, 25-19, 25-13 and 25-16. 

Against Lehi in the 6A semifinals though, Bingham faced its toughest test to date. In the second set, the Miners needed a little divine intervention from a court that needed a little fixing before pulling away from Lehi and winning it. 

As the third set began, Lehi jumped out to a 9-5 lead. Bingham scored three straight points on blocks and then traded the next three points, trailing by the score of 9-11. 

It got worse for the Miners as they fell behind 10-14, forcing Chamberlain to call a timeout to resettle his boys who were spraying their kill attempts out of bounds. 

It worked. Bingham got the next two points to climb to within 12-14 on blocks from the net. 

Lehi called a timeout after the Miners went on a 7-2 run, driving their kill attempts inside the court’s boundaries to take a 17-16 lead. 

Bingham was eight points away from a berth in its first state championship game; would this be the moment that the Miners put it all together for the first time in four years?  

It would be. Bingham forced another timeout from Lehi, digging up several kill attempts to deliver devastating thumps of their own over the other side of the net for a 22-20 advantage and won the match by the final score of 25-18, 27-25 and 25-22 to move on to that game for all the marbles. 

In many ways, the Miners were simply showing their mentality, one that the new coach who came from Olympus High dug up and retooled. 

They wore goggles and they were multi-sport athletes. They were new to the sport and they weren’t. They didn’t post individual stats because they perhaps didn’t need them. 

They silenced all their critics and finished No. 2 in Utah and No. 21 in the nation. 

They were, in all ways, shapes and forms, a team. 

In numerical order, the 2024-25 Bingham Miners boys’ volleyball team was: JJ Faivaee, Jerico Jones, Seth Bushell, Brody Siddoway, Logan Holt, Spencer Smith, Dominic Morrison, Derek Peterson, Garrett Bearden, Alex Goncalves, Jackson Whitehead and Ethan Peterson. λ