Anytime a new coach arrives on Bingham High’s campus, there is a moment of excitement followed by a dose of reality. 

The Miners girls volleyball team are already eating that bitter pill after a season-opening 3-0 loss at Skyridge Tuesday, Aug. 12. 

And yet there are many games ahead for Bingham, who saw Reed Carlson step down after two seasons at the school. 

Where Carlson went is unimportant, but retaining your players is. 

For a Bingham program that has lifted state titles, and plenty of them long before Carlson arrived and led the Miners to a Region title and State Finalist finish in his first season here, the luster seemed to wear off some in season two and so he left after a 19-12 finish. 

In this day of name, image and likeness, and kids in high school receiving lucrative endorsements through sponsorships and the like, Bingham was no different—it had to try and protect its student-athletes from tampering. 

Who could blame them? 

Certainly not the athletics department in charge of so many things you’d think it was a college program. 

And so the Miners, for the second time in recent memory, turned to an alum who played a little in college, Kendzee Cloward. 

With an inability by the UHSAA to do anything to stop this tampering problem at present, and with no end to transfers in sight, a decision was made to limit the information media received on the girls, the roster and the overall state of the program this season. 

For a team that lost 12 seniors and is clearly retooling, the Miners have an interesting schedule ahead. 

They’ll welcome Olympus, a team that went 7-22 last season and just hired a new head coach, to The Pit for the home opener Thursday, Aug. 14. 

Bingham (0-1) isn’t scheduled to play another game until Thursday, Aug. 21 when it travels to Weber to continue their slate of preseason matches. 

An even longer gap between games happens when the Miners open their Region 2 season Tuesday, Sept. 2 at Copper Hills. 

The Miners are then scheduled to play in a three-day tournament, Sept. 4-6. 

On Thursday, Sept. 11, Bingham returns to Region 2 play and will play a new league foe at Cedar Valley. 

Rival Riverton comes to The Pit looking for revenge Tuesday, Sept. 16; the Miners swept and shut out the Silverwolves in 2024-25. 

Bingham will head to Mountain Ridge Thursday, Sept. 18 and then will call The Pit home for the rest of September, into October. 

They will welcome Westlake, another new league foe, Tuesday, Sept. 23 and will host Herriman Thursday, Sept. 25. 

Copper Hills will visit in this home-and-home series Tuesday, Sept. 30 to close out the month of September. 

As October arrives, so will another home game: a Tuesday, Oct. 7 showdown against Cedar Valley. 

And so as a fall chill hovers over the Salt Lake Valley, and those southerly winds pick up, so does the race for the 6A state playoffs. 

A rivalry game at Riverton on a Thursday night takes place Oct. 9. 

The following week will see Bingham hit the road for a second straight rivalry matchup Tuesday, Sept. 14 at Mountain Ridge. They were a team the Miners played three times last season. Counting the state playoffs second round game that Bingham won, the Miners went 2-1 against the Sentinels. 

And then the Miners will be away for their final two games of the regular season, according to how the schedule is currently constructed. 

Bingham will be at Westlake Thursday, Sept. 16, and are scheduled to close out the 2025-26 season with a game at rival Herriman Tuesday, Sept. 21.