Staff photo / Preston Byers Poland’s Joe Zuccaro delivers a pitch during the Bulldogs’ 10-0 win vs. Struthers on Wednesday at Bob Cene Park.

STRUTHERS — For the second time in three days, Poland’s baseball team clobbered Struthers. Two days after defeating the Wildcats by 13 runs, the Bulldogs pitched a 10-0, five-inning shutout on Wednesday at Cene Park for their fourth win of the season.

Poland’s Joe Zuccaro earned the victory after four scoreless innings on the mound, and he received plenty of run support from an offense that did all of its damage in the top of the second and fifth.

“I thought we played a good game, played a clean game,” Poland head coach Rich Murray said. “We hit some line drives, which was good to see, and we pitched well.”

After a scoreless first inning, third baseman Tyson Tarajack led the charge for the Bulldogs, who scored six runs in the top of the second. Tarajack scored the first run of the game on a wild pitch and was quickly followed by his teammates, three of whom scored on hits and two on outfield errors.

Struthers seemed as if it was going to make a dent in the lead immediately thereafter; the Wildcats got two runners on base in the bottom of the second, only for Zuccaro to strike out Travis McMurray to end the inning and strand the pair of Struthers runners.

Following scoreless third and fourth innings, Poland made a push to end the game early in the top of the fifth.

Jacob Hayes led the inning off with a single up to the middle and was driven home on a hard-hit double to deep center field by Tarajack, who crushed the ball more than 350 feet, far over the Struthers outfielder’s head.

Zuccaro brought Tarajack home, and Grady Pitzulo similarly got Zuccaro around the bases on respective RBI doubles. David Vlosich’s sacrifice fly then allowed Dylan Kelty to tag up and score the Bulldogs’ 10th and final run.

Trailing by 10 entering the bottom of the fifth, the Wildcats needed to score to extend the game. But Stephen Kopkash made it impossible to do so; the junior retired the side in order to secure the 10-0 shutout for his team.

“Poland, I think they have a chance to compete for a state title,” Struthers coach Tom Otto said. “I’m proud of our kids today. On Monday, I think we kicked it around a little bit. We gave them some runs. Today, we got hit. So I can live with our pitchers getting hit and them scoring runs that way.

“I thought Joe Zuccaro threw a great game and Kopkash comes in in relief. They’re pretty good on the mound for a high school baseball team.”

With the win, Poland improves to 4-0 on the season and 3-0 in Northeast 8 play. The Bulldogs have outscored their opponents 40-1 so far this year.

Conversely, Struthers is now 2-4 overall and 1-3 in the NE8. Otto said, though, that he has seen improvement after a 5-20 season a year ago.

“I think our kids know that we’ve gotten better from last year,” Otto said. “We’re going through it. There’s no shame in being 2-4, and we got three losses in the league. … I think we’re a team that could be over .500, and as we get better through the year, hopefully, we can make a run.”

Both teams have home games Thursday: Poland hosts Hubbard, while Struthers plays Edgewood.