PREP BASEBALL
Another no-hitter for La Cueva as Blomker Ks 11 against Sandia; state brackets due Sunday
Bears have won 12 straight, including both games Saturday against Matadors
The La Cueva Bears closed the 2026 prep baseball season in near perfect fashion.
The fourth-ranked Bears were already the District 2-5A champions, but as the regular season came to a close Saturday, they went into Sandia and double-bageled the Matadors, 6-0 and 16-0, La Cueva’s last bit of business before the Class 5A state tournament brackets are revealed on Sunday.
La Cueva senior right-hander Dylan Blomker was magnificent in the opener Saturday, striking out 11 and walking three in a no-hitter of the rival Matadors.
“I felt good. This was one of those days when everything was working,” said Blomker (7-0).
He was part of a combined no-hitter, he and Luke Watkins, last week against Santa Fe. Two weeks ago, Luke Feist threw a perfect game against Capital.
“You know, a power pitcher like that who can throw the slider and spin it like he does … it’s a pretty good combination,” La Cueva coach Gerard Pineda said.
The Bears’ other two front-line starters, Everett Burdett (Oregon State) and Feist (New Mexico) combined to three-hit Sandia in the second game on Saturday.
“We’ve been playing really good baseball the last couple of weeks,” said Blomker, who has signed with LSU but most certainly is going to be a strong candidate to earn a high pick in this summer’s amateur draft.
Burdett doubled, tripled and scored four runs in support of Blomker’s no-hitter. And in keeping with tradition, none of his Bear teammates were brave enough to break with tradition and speak to him about it in the dugout.
“None of them,” Blomker said, adding with a laugh, “My third baseman didn’t even realize it was a no-hitter until after the game.”
La Cueva (23-3, 10-0 in 2-5A) scored nine runs in its first at-bat in Game 2; Blomker had a two-run single in that outburst. Chase Qualler later added a two-RBI double to center.
La Cueva added five more runs in the fourth and closed out defending state champion Sandia (13-13, 5-5) in five innings.
Now the Bears, along with the rest of 5A, await to see how they will be seeded on Sunday.
The only two teams that could reasonably be seeded No. 1 are District 1 champion Rio Rancho (21-5) or La Cueva.
General consensus is the top four teams in the 5A field will be Rio Rancho, La Cueva, Cleveland and Piedra Vista. District 3 champion Centennial (24-2) in also part of the mix.
“The seeding, we can’t control,” Blomker said. “It’s out of our hands now. Gotta move on and focus on these next couple of weeks.”
La Cueva lost just two games against New Mexico competition. One was a bizarre 17-16 decision to Cibola on the eve of the Bears playing in the Rio Rancho tournament, the other was a 6-2 setback to Cleveland.
“It’s always good to be playing well, and we’re playing well,” Pineda said. “It’s probably the best we’ve played all year. When you get some of the arms like we have, we feel like we have a shot every day.”
Carlsbad and Los Lunas were the other district champions in 5A baseball. The Tigers’ case is an interesting one, since they could end up being the only district champ to be sent on the road in the first round next weekend due to their record (15-11) and their status in both polls (No. 9 in the most recent coaches’ poll, and 12th in the most recent MaxPreps rankings).
Defending Class 4A state champion Artesia will almost certainly be seeded No. 1 this year, even with Goddard ranked above the Bulldogs in both (They are No. 1 and No. 2 in the most recent rankings as of 7 p.m. Saturday). But Artesia won that district because it took two out of three head-to-head versus Goddard earlier this week, so it will have the higher seed for the playoffs.
Albuquerque Academy and Grants were also district champions, and are in line for top-eight seeds in that 4A bracket.
East Mountain, a one-loss team, will assuredly be the top seed in the 3A bracket.
The ϼ will also have softball and tennis postseason brackets on Sunday. State individual singles and doubles action in tennis begins on Wednesday and concludes on Thursday, followed by the team action Friday and Saturday.
Postseason action in baseball and softball begins on Wednesday.
James Yodice covers prep sports for the Journal. You can reach him at jyodice@abqjournal.com or via X at .