The Bulldog baseball and Lady Bulldog softball teams punched their tickets to the next rounds of the Class 4A State Tournament with particular emphasis this weekend.
In a best-of-three first-round series at Brainard Park, the fifth-ranked Diamond ‘Dogs completed a sweep of No. 12 Santa Teresa with a 10-0 win Friday and a 20-1 victory Saturday afternoon. The No. 5 Lady ‘Dogs then followed with a 13-0 win over 12th-ranked Bloomfield Saturday evening in the single-elimination first round of the state softball tourney. All three wins came in the fifth inning via the 10-run rule.
The Bulldogs (15-13) will now move on to the 4A quarterfinals, where they’ll face a familiar state-tournament foe: fourth-ranked St. Pius. The Sartans have been a thorn in the ‘Dogs’ side at the state event for several years now, having eliminated Artesia in the quarterfinal round in 2022, 2017 and 2011 and in the semifinal round in 2021. Pius also defeated the Bulldogs in the 2019 state championship game.
The ‘Dogs and Sartans will square off at 12:30 p.m. Thursday on Field 4 at the Jennifer Riordan Spark Kindness Sports Complex in Albuquerque.
The Lady Bulldogs (19-7), meanwhile, advance into the double-elimination portion of the state bracket, where they’ll also open against No. 4 St. Pius at 9 a.m. Thursday at the Cleveland High School softball complex in Rio Rancho. The winner of that contest will play again at 1 p.m. Thursday versus the winner of No. 8 Belen/No. 1 Gallup. The loser will drop into the consolation bracket, for which no game times have yet been specified.
