Staff photo / Neel Madhavan Poland’s Katie McDonald high-fives Poland softball coach Jim Serich as she rounds third base after hitting a home run against Hubbard on Thursday.

POLAND — The new softball field at Poland has been a long time in the making.

Up until 2008, the Bulldogs had played on the school campus, but since then Poland has played its softball games at nearby North Elementary. A few years ago, the Poland school board and athletics boosters got together and came up with a plan to build a new field at the school.

That plan finally became a reality, as Poland opened its new softball field with an 8-2 victory on Thursday over Northeast-8 Conference foe Hubbard.

“It’s special — I’m so happy the board and the superintendent made this happen,” said Poland head coach Jim Serich. “We love North — we liked playing there, but it was a youth complex, not a high school complex. Now we actually have a high school field, which is great, you can’t ask for anything else. The girls have their own locker room inside the fieldhouse. It’s a great combination and a great place to play. Aesthetically, this is as nice as it gets. We’ve got everything we need, we can’t be any more happy and we can’t thank them enough.”

The Bulldogs rode the momentum from the ribbon cutting and celebration of the new field right into the first inning of play.

Poland scored four runs off four hits in the bottom of the first, which included a two-run home run by Katie McDonald. All four of Poland’s runs came with two outs on the board.

Mary Brant started things off with a double, which led directly into McDonald’s blast.

“They got the first two outs and then we ran through the order and scored four runs,” Serich said. “That was huge to get that momentum going.”

With the Eagles’ youth — they have five freshmen, 12 sophomores and one junior — they’re prone to growing pains, which came into play during Poland’s four-run first inning and three-run fifth inning.

A pair of errors in each of those two innings by Hubbard allowed Poland runners to reach base.

“I told the girls, what really hurt us was that we gave up eight runs, but five of them were unearned,” said Hubbard head coach Bill Amero. “Even though we faced a good pitcher, and she had some strikeouts against us, it could have been a 3-3 or 3-2 ballgame. We’re a young team and we just can’t afford to make errors like that.

“The errors we made…I told (the team) they were routine plays. No one asked them to make the ESPN highlight reel, we just need routine plays. …If we’re making the same mistakes at the end of the year, we’ve got a problem, but it’s only our second game. You have to be patient with them. But Poland’s a good team and good teams take advantage of mistakes.”

Save for the high-scoring first and fifth innings, Hubbard mostly managed to keep Poland at bay, with the other lone run coming on an RBI double by Leanne Boccieri in the second inning after a lead-off base hit by Elliana Thompson.

“We got that (early) lead, and then we got a little stagnant and then we jumped on them again,” Serich said. “We have to be a little more consistent, but that’ll come as the year goes.”

The Eagles’ runs came from a solo home run by Lauren Komorek in the third inning and an RBI by Alyssa Gregory in the fourth inning that scored Kaylee Schultz.