RALEIGH — For a tournament that was scheduled to take place over three days but was forced to be made up over the course of three weeks because of inclement weather, it was only fitting that the Bobby Murray Invitational’s championship game dragged on, too.

With Apex and Green Hope playing for the fourth time in five days, both teams were short on pitching. The Cougars jumped all over the Falcons early, scoring seven runs in the top of the first inning, and crushed the Falcons 22-7 in five innings.

“All our guys were getting pumped even on the bus ride over here,” said Apex pitcher Parker Harrell, who got the win. “We were getting so excited and couldn’t wait to play. When we got here, we just kind of put it on the field.”

Green Hope was playing its second game of the day and third in a span of just more than 24 hours. Earlier Saturday afternoon, the Falcons defeated Southeast Raleigh 10-0 in five innings in the Matt Cossa Memorial Game. On Friday, they squeaked by Panther Creek 5-4.

“My hat’s off really to Green Hope for their efforts today,” said Apex coach Mike Valder. “I have a lot of respect for those guys for going through this and playing three games in 24 hours. I’m sure that scoring runs [early] probably really deflated any energy they had left.”

Green Hope coach Mike Miragliuolo was concerned his team might not have enough arms to get through the day. But after Nolan Poythress threw a five-inning one-hitter against the Bulldogs, those concerns subsided.

“That was about perfect,” Miragliuolo said. “I can’t complain.”

But if the first game of the day was perfect, the second was anything but.

After five pitches, the Cougars had three hits and a 1-0 lead. Starting pitcher Eric Brady was chased after one-third of an inning and his team trailing 6-0.

“Obviously, it put us in the hole when we didn’t get out of the first with our starter,” Miragliuolo said.

Green Hope needed seven pitchers to get through the night. Right hander Max Povse lasted the longest, tossing 1.2 innings and allowing two runs and two hits.

While the Falcons were short on arms, the Cougars deserve credit for the way they swung their bats. They scored their 22 runs on 15 hits, and they could’ve had more had they not left the bases loaded three times and stranded 12 runners on base.

And it all started in the first.

Corey Thompson, Chris Diaz and Trace Allard pounded singles to start the game in consecutive at-bats. Later in the winning, Taylor Gitlin hit a two-run triple and Jake Milinichik followed with an RBI double. Thompson, in his second at-bat of the inning, crushed a run-scoring ground-rule double to put the Cougars up 7-0.

“All of sudden, bats just started coming alive,” said Thompson, who went 3-for-5 with four RBIs and was named the tournament MVP. “That was unbelievable. That first inning was crazy.”

Green Hope picked up two runs in its half of the first — after a lead-off triple, Brady scored on an error and David Teter scored later on a wild pitch — but the Cougars took the two runs back in the second.

The Falcons inched closer in the second thanks to three runs. Dylan Kipp’s RBI single made it 9-5, but Green Hope left the bases loaded to end the inning, then did it again in the third.

“It would’ve given us a few more runs, but I don’t know how we would have held them down because they just hit the ball when we threw it across,” Miragliuolo said. “We would have had to make every play and have some things go our way.”

Apex took a 12-7 lead in the fourth after Thompson’s towering home run to center before putting the game away in the top of the fifth. The Cougars scored nine runs on four hits, while Green Hope had three errors and issued four walks, plus a hit batsman.

Up 22-7, Apex pitcher Drew Schultz retired Green Hope in order in the bottom of the fifth — the only time that happened all night — to bring an end to the tournament that began April 3.

“We’re trying to play a complete game, and we’ve really struggled to play a complete game,” Valder said. “It’s going to be a totally different game on Tuesday [when Apex and Green Hope were to play in a scheduled Tri-Eight game], and I think we all know that. We just wanted to make sure we did what we were supposed to do and get the job done.”