The weather finally seems to be warming up in the TIMES NEWS area, but as of late, that's not the only thing that's been heating up.

As the mid-way point of the high school baseball season approaches the Lehighton Indians are getting hot. The Tribe has won five straight games, including taking care of business against non-league opponent Northwestern Lehigh on Monday.The Indians turned in their best offensive performance of the season, coming up with 12 hits en route to an 8-2 win over the Tigers.The man with a plan on the afternoon was Lehighton senior Anthony Rossino. Rossino, who was just named to the TN basketball all star team, showed he has some skills on the diamond as well. He pitched five solid innings, giving up just one hit and one run. At the plate, he also did quite a bit of damage, tallying two hits and three RBIs."We're just playing really well as a team right now," said Rossino. "With the weather being nice we've been able to get outside and hit more and I think that has helped us get better offensively. We just need to keep playing good baseball and continue to back each other up out there."The Tribe got out to a strong start, scoring six of their eight runs in the first two innings.Six different Lehighton players had hits during that stretch with Vince Mele driving in two runs. Rossino, Nick Hill, and Ben Cordova also added RBIs in the first two innings."This was by far our best offensive performance of the season," said Lehighton coach Brian Polaha. "We had good at bats, we were patient, we waited for our pitches. It was also the hardest we hit the ball all year It was just a good day for us at the plate."Northwestern on the other hand, couldn't get its sticks going at all.The Tigers had some opportunities early on, but Rossino always seemed to be able to work himself out of any real danger. The Tigers two runs came late, with one coming in the fifth and the other in the seventh when they were already down eight runs."We just need to rebound from today's performance and get refocused," said Northwestern coach Len Smith. "We are capable of much more than what we showcased today. We just seemed to lose focus at times today, so we need to just get better and move on from this one."For the Indians, their goal is to continue to play winning baseball. After a rough start (1-4), the Indians are now 6-4 with the second half of the Mountain Conference schedule looming."We're getting better, there is no doubt about that," said Polaha. "Especially offensively, you can see that guys are going to the plate with more confidence. If we can continue to get at bats like we did today, we're going to be a very dangerous team in the second half of conference play and hopefully the postseason."Northwestern 000 010 1 - 2 4 3Lehighton 332 000 x - 8 12 4Storm, NA (3) and Breidinger; Rossino, Rex (6), and David, Clements (6); W - Rossino L - Storm.