The Western Hills baseball team is currently in its home stretch of the regular season, with its final game slated for next week against Bain.

The Cobras jumped out to a strong 6-1 start to kick of the year, but dropped back to back contests to Feinstein and Warwick Vets by a combined score of 3-0. However, Western Hills rebounded to cruise to a 9-0 win over Park View to get things back on track.

“We got off to a great start but dropped a few heartbreakers. We’ll be fine though. I would say we are a top three or four team in the state based on our talent. We have a 20-man roster so we have a good mix of sixth, seventh and eighth graders in the program. We dropped some heartbreakers but we’re learning, we’re moving on and hopefully we can catch those teams in the playoffs,” said Western Hills coach Don Ceseretti.

Sharp pitching kept the Cobra bats in check during their two losses, including a complete-game shutout performance by Feinstein’s Tommy Turner.

“Those teams are very good, but what went wrong was our bats. We are used to scoring six, seven runs a game but our bats went cold. That’s what we learned, and the positive is that those are very good teams that also put up a lot of runs on teams,” said Ceseretti, who feels like those losses may be a blessing in disguise when considering when they fell on the schedule. “I told the boys that it is not always good to go undefeated … a loss or two really helps you understand what you need to capitalize on. I would rather have a loss now than in the playoffs. You never want to go in a slump in the playoffs. You just need to keep the kids motivated and ready to go.”

The Cobras will continue to grind in the final week, and will focus on their offense, which has been among the top units across the state this season.

“We just need to continue to work on hitting and getting runner on board. Once we do that, we have a lot of good players with high baseball IQ’s,” said Ceseretti. “The kids are motivated by (losing in the playoffs last year.) The expectation all year is that we can make the playoffs, we have a deep, talented team, so the expectation is to make the playoffs and hopefully take it further this season.”