KEN LANE / Staff

Greater Naples 9-10 year-old All-Star billy Zeliff started at pitcher in the state championship game and went four innings giving up four hits. Greater came back to defeat Martin County, 7-4, July 22 in Freeport.

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Just call Greater Naples the Comeback Kids.

Its coach does.

Greater Naples came back from a four-run deficit in the third running Tuesday night to win the 9- and 10-year-old state tournament championship 7-4 over Martin County, a team they had lost to in pool play.

“You can’t say I didn’t tell you so,” Greater Naples coach Chad Ott said after nearly a 30-minute celebration. “It talks measures to the size of their heart. They don’t get down when they get down.”

Greater Naples finished the tournament 4-1 and came back in four of those games. It is 12-2 this summer through the district, the sectional and now the state tournament.

Starting pitcher Billy Zeliff started Greater Naples’ rally in the third inning with a double. He scored when Matt Vetter reached on an error. The next batter, Chris Riley, knocked in Casey Santos-Ocampo to bring Greater Naples within 4-2.

They tied the game in the fourth when Will Collins scored after B.J. Minarcin reached on an error and then Santos-Ocampo drove in John D’Ameilio.

After a walk to start the fifth inning, Naples had two quick outs when Will Collins drove in Riley to take a 5-4 lead. D’Amelio then started a stretch of three straight base hits. Minarchin drove in Collins and Santos-Campos capped the comeback win by scoring D’Amelio.

“Unbelievable,” Ott said. “There’s been more than a few evenings when we had to do that. I was concerned when they jumped up 4-0 on us. We’ve never faced anything like that. They just found balls and hit them hard.”

Zeliff pitched four innings and allowed four runs on six hits. After Martin County scored its four runs in the first two innings, Zeliff settled down and retired five straight batters and then six of the next seven.

Santos-Ocampo came in and finished the game with two innings of relief and allowed just two hits.

“At the end of the day I think us losing that first game to them gave us a lot of confidence,” Ott said.

A week after celebrating its championship sweep of the three youngest District 27 All-Star age divisions, the attitude around Greater Naples Little League was a bit more somber last Saturday.

The summer season ended for the two older teams last weekend, as the 10-11s fell one game short of moving on to the state finals, while the 11-12s failed to win a game in the sectional.

“We knew it was going to be tough,” 10-11 manager Jimmy Nocera said of his team’s prospects of winning the league’s second sectional title. “I told the kids just to come out and play hard, and you never know what’s going to happen.”

Nocera’s own squad fell one game – perhaps one inning – short of making the state tournament. The All-Stars started the four-team round-robin sectional July 18 with a 3-1 loss to South Fort Myers, which Nocera said was the favorite coming into the event.

In that first game, South scored twice in the top of the third inning. The two South players scored after reaching base on a walk and an error, respectively. Greater Naples then managed just one run, despite erupting for 13 in the final game of the tournament.

“Our offense could have been rusty. When you lay off nine days, that does happen,” Nocera said. “But give (South) credit. Their pitcher threw a lot of strikes, and their defense was outstanding.”

The Greater Naples 10-11s won their final two sectional games convincingly, dispatching Lehigh and Central Sarasota by a combined score of 19-4. South Fort Myers, however, won its final two games to finish undefeated and take home the sectional banner.

The trouble for the Greater Naples 11-12s began almost as soon as its Section 6 tournament started Friday at San Carlos Little League’s Three Oaks Park. Fort Myers American hit back-to-back home runs in the top of the first inning to win 4-2.

In their second game of the tournament, the 11-12s were again hurt in the early innings by the long ball. San Carlos Park hit two home runs in the second inning to take a commanding six-run lead before winning 8-4. Ian Williams and Blake Werab each had two hits in the game.

Greater Naples fell 7-3 in its final game of the 11-12 sectional, finishing 0-3. For a majority of the players, it was the second straight summer their All-Star season ended at the Section 6 tournament. Seven of the 10 All-Stars were on the league’s District 27 champion 9-10 team last year.