A Kansas City Piper runner, front, scores ahead of the throw to Lawrence's Caleb Gress. Regardless, the Raiders run-ruled Piper, 13-3, on Saturday at Free State High.

It took the Lawrence Raiders nearly 24 hours to complete their game against Kansas City Piper in the second round of the American Legion zone tournament at Free State High, but it was well worth the wait.

The game that started Friday night was completed Saturday when the Raiders run-ruled Piper, 13-3 in seven innings to advance to the championship game at 3 p.m. today.

“It was actually kind of nice because it was like playing a normal seven-inning game but starting with the lead,” said the Raiders’ Alex Hardman about having a 2-0 advantage when the game resumed in the third inning. “When you think of it that way, it’s kind of nice to come out like that. So we didn’t have any trouble.”

Piper got to Raiders starting pitcher Caleb Gress when the game resumed in the top of the third, tying the game at 2.

However, the next three innings Gress didn’t allow a hit and stranded three Piper base runners.

“I don’t think it took too much to get into the game,” Gress said. “I just don’t think I was quite mentally prepared like I should have been.”

In the bottom of the fifth, the Raiders finally got their bats going again.

Hunter Scheib led off the inning with a well placed bloop on the infield to reach base. After Travis Sanders sacrificed Scheib to second, Kyle Cross came up with an RBI and the dam finally burst.

Cross scored on a John Novotny sacrifice fly before Ben Wilson, who was walked four times and hit a sacrifice fly, and Joe Kornbrust scored on a double by Hardman.

“It was pretty big for us because it kind of put them down and, they didn’t really want to play after we put that five-spot on them,” Hardman said. “It just kind of helped give us the momentum and slowed them down a little bit.”

Hardman scored the fifth and final run in the fifth off a Patrick Johnson single.

In the seventh, the Raiders put up five-spot once again to reach the 10-run advantage for the run-rule victory.

Piper was able to retire the lead-off batter in the bottom of the seventh, but four walks, a hit batter and two singles later, the Raiders had earned a spot in the championship game.

“Overall, our line-up is pretty good,” Raiders coach Shaun Edmondson said. “You look at it top to bottom and throughout the whole summer there’s been instances where we could have hit a guy in the nine-hole or the lead-off or the three-hole. So our line-up is pretty interchangeable for the most part.”

The Raiders will face the Topeka Senators in the championship game. With the double-elimination set-up, if the Raiders lose at 3 p.m., a second championship game would follow.

“We’re in a good position to win zone,” Edmondson said. “We’ll have Daniel Green pitch tomorrow and have a few other guys available out of the ‘pen. So we feel confident going into the championship game.

“But it’s not over. We have to understand that we still have some execution to do and still have to do some things right.”