Another no-hitter for La Cueva as Blomker Ks 11 against Sandia; state brackets due Sunday

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.”