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Youth baseball: Greater Naples 9-10s not disappointed with 0-3 finish

By NICK KRUEGER (Contact)
7:22 p.m., Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Tournament of State Champions official site

STORY TOOLS

In any other All-Star tournament, an 0-3 record might be demoralizing.

However, for the Greater Naples 9-10-year-old All-Stars, the winless showing is not what's going to be remembered by Chad Ott and his team. The experience of having traveled to Ceredo, W.Va., and playing in the Tournament of State Champions is consolation enough.

Greater Naples was invited after winning Florida's state championship against Martin County, 7-4 on July 22. They became just the second youth baseball team from Collier County to win a state title. The Tournament of State Champions began on Friday, and the championship game will be played Wednesday at Mitch Stadium.

"It was unbelievable; I think the kids are going to remember this for the rest of their lives," he said. "We got there and we were in a parade and there were opening ceremonies and that made the kids feel special and the stadium that we played in was really cool -- it was probably the coolest stadium I've ever seen Little League played in."

Indeed, a parade awaited the All-Stars that, in addition to Florida, came from Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, North and South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee and host West Virginia. Following a tour of the town through the city streets from the back of pickup trucks flanked by blaring fire engines, the teams finished the drive through Ceredo at Dreamland Pool and mingled at a picnic held for all the teams.

During the tournament's opening ceremonies, each player on every team was introduced and each team trotted the perimeter of the field getting up-close and personal with the crowd in attendance.

After the festivities ended, so did most of the fun for Greater Naples, which opened against Virginia and lost, 11-1. In a more competitive contest, Greater Naples played a closer game against Alabama, but still fell after Huntsville Eastern's offense woke up in the fourth inning and scored twice. The boys from Alabama added three more runs over the final two innings to win, 5-2.

Naples played its closest game against North Carolina, but after coming into the game all but eliminated from advancing, Greater Naples couldn't find the spark to lift them beyond a 5-4 defeat.

"We didn't play a game all season like the one we did against Virginia -- we've never had a team come out and beat us for the entire game like that," Ott said. "It was close all the way and we opened up with a one-run lead against Alabama, and we had the bases loaded in the sixth, but on a sac fly one of our runners was called out for an illegal lead-off and up until then we were making progress.

"North Carolina was a good team, but I think that after the previous two games the kids weren't entirely there. It's been a long summer and to maintain that focus and motivation is hard."

For a team that only returned one player from last year's lineup, Ott was happy in advancing to such a tournament. Within two seasons, most of the team will be eligible to try and make it to the Little League World Series. For now, the thoughts of the team are still on the record-setting 2008 season.

"This is all new for us and this league -- we have never achieved this level of success and to be a part of it gives us a great sense of pride," Ott said. "For me and my staff, the best was seeing the look in the kids' eyes when they realized they had actually made it that far."

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