Correspondent photo / Robert Hayes Hubbard’s Braydon Songer reacts toward his dugout after a two-run double during Thursday’s road win at Poland.

POLAND — By the time the sun hid behind clouds, the temperature certainly didn’t scream “May.” But the race to the end of the regular season is certainly on.

Thursday evening’s contest between the visitors from Hubbard and the host Poland Bulldogs was a key matchup in terms of control of the Northeast 8 Conference. With a 4-2 victory, the Eagles didn’t just avenge their opening-day loss, but they also found themselves alone perched atop the NE8 standings.

Junior righty Braydon Songer tossed a complete game, fanning 11 Poland batters in the process.

“We preached put the ball in play. I know the strikeout numbers were way down tonight. I think that had a huge part in it,” Hubbard coach John Schiraldi said. “A lot of it is just different guys stepping up all the time. We have our core group, but everybody at some point has played a part to get us to where we’re at.”

“(Songer) is a dog, everybody here has confidence when he’s on the mound, another big part of that is Johnny Reyes behind the plate, a four-year starter for us at catcher, he does a great job of handling our whole staff. I think him and Braydon have a good rapport. We felt about as confident as you could feel against a team as good as Poland is. We’ve been playing well lately, I’m really happy with everybody.”

During the bottom of the third, Poland (13-3) took its only lead of the game following an RBI sacrifice fly off the bat of senior Tyson Tarajack. Junior Joseph Zuccaro followed that up with an RBI single, increasing the edge to 2-0.

Hubbard (14-4) was swift to respond, with back-to-back singles to open the fourth. Senior Geno Leshnack and sophomore Logan Balla then advanced on a sacrifice bunt from senior Zack Svensson.

With a pair of Eagles in scoring position, senior Ben Cheney knocked a hard-hit single into left field, cutting the lead in half.

“We’ve gotten a lot closer at practice (since the first game against Poland), a lot of the senior group spent a lot of time together at a religious retreat back in March, got a lot of us together in the right way. A lot of us are doing our jobs here. That’s how you win games.” Cheney said.

Later in the inning with two outs, Songer helped his own cause, blasting a knock to deep center field, bringing home Cheney and Balla to earn a 3-2 lead. During the top of the fifth inning, Hubbard would find some insurance with Reyes scoring on an infield error, sliding across home plate in a sea of dust.

Songer was able to establish his off-speed pitches but faced a bases-loaded jam in the bottom of the sixth before striking out Poland’s Tucker Tarajack. In a similar turn of events, the Bulldogs had a pair of runners in scoring position with one out during the bottom of the seventh, when Songer fanned a hitter and then induced a fly out to deep right field.

“I just kept my composure on the mound, I knew Poland was going to hit, they’re a great baseball team,” Songer said. “Toward the end, my changeup was really working with the outside fastball and the curveball too.

“Bases loaded, I knew I had to get out of it, I had to step up and make a play. We’re all clicking together now, we’re stringing together hits when we need it, working as a team.”

Senior Mike Daley had a pair of singles for Poland, while senior right-handed pitcher Tyson Tarajack gave more than five innings worth of work on the bump.

Bulldogs coach Rich Murray saw the fight in his team despite the outcome.

“To get guys on against them, it’s tough,” Murray said. “I give credit to my guys for putting the ball in play a little bit instead of swinging for the fences. Shortening our swings against them, we attacked them pretty good, we didn’t hit it hard by no means, but we just needed that timely hit and didn’t get it.”