Playoff time: Both city teams home for first round

RIO RANCHO — When the New Mexico Activities Association released its bracket for the Nusenda Credit Union State Baseball Tournament, seeing the Cleveland and Rio Rancho high school baseball teams awarded home field advantage for the best-of-three series this weekend wouldn’t have surprised anyone.

If there was anything to surprise local fans, it may have been the Rams’ victory over visiting Cleveland on May 2, the outcome of which decided the championship of District 1-5A, Rio Rancho’s third in the past five seasons (2021, ’23 and ’25). The win ended the Rams’ four-game losing streak vs. Cleveland and gave them a 13-1 record at home.

Both city teams have appeared in the last two state championship games: The Storm (18-8 and 10-2 at home) lost last May’s battle with La Cueva. The Rams (20-6) won the blue trophy in 2023 after beating Centennial.

The Storm also played for all the marbles in 2017, losing to La Cueva, and 2019, losing to Volcano Vista.

For anyone paying heed to omens, 2025 might be good for the Rams, 13-1 at home this spring, whose four championships have been in “odd” years: 2007, 2009, 2013 and 2023. They also played for the blue trophy in 2010, losing to La Cueva, and in 2016, falling to future MLB pitcher Trevor Rogers and his Carlsbad Cavemen.

The city’s squads are on opposite sides of the bracket, so they could conceivably meet in the championship game. On the same side of the bracket last season, the Storm beat the Rams in a semifinal contest.

Of course, they’ve got to get past the best-of-three first round to even have hopes of playing for the blue trophy on Saturday, May 17, at UNM’s Santa Ana Star Field. The quarterfinals and semifinals will again be at the Jennifer Riordan Spark Kindness Sports Complex on Albuquerque’s West Side May 15-16.

That first round starts at 4 p.m. Friday, May 9, at home for both teams.

Game 2 for the Rams is 11 a.m. Saturday, and the third game, if necessary, follows Saturday’s first contest.

Game 2 for the Storm is 10 a.m. Saturday, and the third game, if necessary, follows Saturday’s first contest.

After the 16-team bracket was released Sunday, the Rams (20-6) were the 2 seed, and in their first-round series, they get face the team they just beat, Farmington (16-10), the 15 seed. The Rams also won their first meeting with the Scorpions, 10-9, at RRHS on April 1.

The Storm (18-8) received the 4 seed and entertain No. 13 Mayfield (15-10-1) in their first-round series.

Here’s what happened last week

Rams 10, Storm 3

Junior shortstop Wyatt Tinker led the Rams’ hit parade, going 3 for 4 with a first-inning homer and two RBIs.

Through five innings, it was a senior pitchers’ duel, the Storm’s Jarren Villa matching slants with the Rams’ Brandon Segal.

Villa scored the game’s first run in the opening inning; Tinker tied it with his long ball in the bottom of that frame.

“That was a big turning point for us, Tinker with that shot,” Rams coach David Gomez said. “It got us right back in it. We could easily have gone into the tank there after that.”

They didn’t. The Rams took a 3-1 lead in the fourth on successive singles by Adrian Varoz, Dean Ellison and Noah Serna, plus a sacrifice fly from Matt Cook.

Rancho basically put the game out of reach in the sixth, sending a dozen batters to the plate vs. three Storm pitchers, as Treven Polanco and Gabe Nelson followed Villa to the mound.

That trio combined to give up five walks and just three hits, with the damage started early when Jackson Roybal reached on an infield error. Chase Rivera had a two-run single, and Tinker followed with an RBI single. Roybal came up a second time and slashed a two-run single, closing out the scoring.

After five straight scoreless frames vs. Segal, the Storm rallied in the seventh. Josiah Armijo reached second base on an error. Villa singled, sending Armijo to third, and he scored on Owen Bishop’s sacrifice fly.

Anthony Del Angel, capping his 4-for-4 day at the plate, doubled to plate Villa.

Lefty Logan Sunstrom relieved Segal, walking Nelson before fanning Caleb Sandoval and getting Francisco Hernandez to ground out and end the game.

“The pitch count got up with Segal a little bit, which made it tough for him to finish it,” Gomez said of Segal coming out just two outs short of a complete game.

“It started off real slow,” Segal said, “but I figured it out. We just kept adding on and adding on and it was easier to pitch, kept the momentum over on our side. I threw a lot of curveballs and sliders outside.”

He finished with five strikeouts; Villa wound up with 10.

Hitting star Tinker said he had been “really aggressive."

“We really wanted this. Rivals, obviously. Just go out there and attack well,” he said. “It was a super-big game for us.”

Rams 6, Farmington 1

On May 3, the Rams headed to the Four Corners for the second time in five days, this time for a makeup game with the Scorpions. The game’s original date, April 18, had inclement weather and had been postponed to Saturday.

“We’re gonna have to take it as serious as we took (the game vs. Cleveland),” Gomez had said Friday, “and try to finish on a high note going into the postseason. We have a lot of respect for Farmington, so we’re going to play as hard as we can.”

Adan Varoz scattered four hits in pitching the first five innings; Cook and Roybal, with one inning apiece, finished up the game on the hill.

The Rams scored four times in the fourth, and the Scorpions scored their lone run in the bottom of the fourth, ending the game’s scoring.

Catcher Mattheis Santhoeurn, Serna, Roybal and Ellison each had two hits for the Rams, who also swiped four bases.

Rams 8, Piedra Vista 6

Outfielder Noah Serna went 3 for 4 with a pair of RBI doubles to help the Rams win their April 29 game.

The visitors scored twice in their first at-bats, when Serna socked his first two-bagger.

The Panthers knotted the game at 2 in the second inning, but the Rams went on a scoring spree in the third, scoring five times, giving the winning pitcher Adan Bustos a pad.

Rivera opened the frame with a single and Tinker doubled. An RBI single by Adrian Varoz made it 3-2; Ellison singled home Tinker, and Serna doubled again, plating Varoz and sending Ellison to third.

Ellison scampered home on a wild pitch; Serna came home to close out the big inning on a double by Cook.

Rivera and Ellison each went 2 for 4; Ellison had two RBIs.

Richie Reiffenbeger came on to pitch the sixth but needed relief help from lefty Logan Sunstrom to shut down a Panthers rally in that inning.

Storm 8, Volcano Vista 3

As the Rams were winning in Farmington, the Storm were doing likewise on the West Side — and also scoring twice in the first inning.

It seemed early in that game that the phrase “putting the ball in play” was less than meaningful: The Storm scored two runs and hit only one ball in fair territory, a two-run single by Sandoval. Hawks lefty Aaron Sanchez helped, walking four batters in the inning.

“I thought we did a pretty good job at the plate,” CHS coach Shane Shallenberger said. “He was a little off starting the game … I’m assuming his pitch count was pretty high (when he left). I thought we did a pretty good job of battling (Sanchez).”

The Storm went three and out in the second, with Del Angel leading off the third inning with a home run to left.

After another zero went on the scoreboard in the fourth, the Storm sent Sanchez out of the game after Del Angel walked to start the fifth. Nelson walked and one out later, so did Hernandez. Designated hitter Larry Garcia’s single to center plated Del Angel and Nelson for a 5-0 lead. An infield single by Jarren Villa later sent Hernandez home.

The Hawks, who also gave up eight runs in the Storm in their first meeting, spoiled the shutout bid of southpaw starter Xavier Vasquez in the fifth, when they managed to use a walk and two singles to score twice.

Polanco allowed just an infield single in the sixth, and then an unearned run in the seventh, when the Storm committed three errors.

Extra innings

Here’s how the District 1-5A standings wound up: Rams (8-2), Storm (7-3), Volcano Vista (5-5), Piedra Vista (4-6), Farmington (3-7) Cibola (3-7). All six teams qualified for state.

… Here are the other first round series: No. 16 Las Cruces (17-9) at No. 1 and defending state champ La Cueva (23-3); No. 14 Cibola (15-11) at No. 3 Carlsbad (21-5); No. 12 Organ Mountain (16-9-1) at No. 5 Eldorado (19-7); No. 11 Piedra Vista (16-10) at No. 6 Sandia (18-7); No. 10 Rio Grande (17-9) at No. 7 Centennial (20-6); and No. 9 Los Lunas (16-10) at No. 8 Volcano Vista (15-11).

… 2025 marks the sixth season in a row the Rams have won 20 games, and 17th time in RRHS history.