The Lawrence Raiders are as hot as the temperature heading into their game against Blue Valley at 7:45 tonight in the American Legion zone tournament at Free State High.

The Raiders (25-5) are riding a five-game winning streak into the postseason – winning by an average of seven runs over that span – and have gone 9-2 since the beginning of July.

“It’s good, from my standpoint, that things are starting to sink in and starting to click at the right time,” Raiders coach Troy Wingert said. “There was some frustration setting in a couple of weeks ago because we hit kind of a mid-summer slump. But that’s to be expected with these kids.”

In their season finale, the Raiders knocked around what Wingert said was a state-worthy Emporia team. Lawrence collected 19 hits in its 17-7 victory in Emporia.

“After Emporia, that got us going, and I think we’re going to snowball and just go downhill and just get a lot better,” the Raiders’ Tyler Knight said. “We hadn’t really hit like that all season … so it’s kind of a surprise how well we hit, but we’ll just see if we can keep that up.”

Though their bats have continued to stay hot, the once-cold play of the Raiders’ defense has begun to complement the offense.

“We’ve gone 25 innings without an error, so I definitely think that’s a plus,” Wingert said.

Wingert plans to have Travis Blankenship kickstart the week on the mound for the Raiders and will have all of his pitchers available in case Blankenship struggles.

“He’s been kind of our guy that we throw out there in the first night of the tournament, and he does very well with that,” Wingert said. “I think he gains a little extra bit of confidence as being the quote-unquote No. 1 ace of the staff. … But if Travis is on and brings his A-game, the other team’s going to have a tough time dealing with what he’s going to throw at them.”

The only thing about the Huskies – who beat Tonganoxie 13-8 Tuesday at Free State – that concerns the Raiders’ skipper is their hustle on the base path.

“They run well, and their team speed, from what I’ve seen, is pretty good, and they put the baseball in play,” Wingert said. “So that could possibly be a problem for us if we’re not taking care of the baseball, because with good team speed, you’re one extra-base hit away from being right back in the baseball game. … But obviously, I’m going to be pretty biased and say that I’ll take my club, any day, over anybody else.”