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ESTERO — When Little League All-Star teams are this close to advancing to state tournaments, the games get a little tighter, the scores get a little closer, and the emotions run much higher.

Friday night at Three Oaks Community Park, four 9- through 10-year-old teams kicked off the start of the Section 6 All-Star tournament and Greater Naples and Venice head into today's games as the teams with the early edge in the round-robin standings.

Greater Naples did just enough on offense and took advantage of steady pitching by Preston Ott to win its first game against South Fort Myers, 2-0. Venice jumped on Bonita Springs early on the field next door to run away with a 7-2 victory.

The teams will all play double headers today to wrap things up at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m.

Greater Naples had the look of a team that could have taken a much bigger hold of the game early on after Ott retired South's first three batters in order, then went on to score a run on two outs after three consecutive singles by Casey Santos-Ocampo, Ott and B.J. Minarcin.

"We knew that they are a good team and if we were going to have success we needed to come out and score early," Greater Naples manager Chad Ott said. "We didn't really execute as well as I think we could have, but the kids are tough, they played good defense, and we got some good pitching."

Santos-Ocampo hit a home run in the bottom of the fifth inning to seal the victory before taking to the mound himself to close out the game. Both he and Ott were clearly the difference makers for Greater Naples.

"Both guys are big kids for their age and that helps them; they already have some pretty good physical tools," Ott added. "They saw some good talent playing in majors this season, and I think that is also really helping now."

South Fort Myers manager Mike Trombley wasn't disappointed in his team despite coming out on the losing end of the final score.

"It was a great game – it's not too often you see a 2-0 final in a Little League game, they're usually a lot higher scoring than that," he said. "(Pitcher) Cole Connor did great and their guy did too, so we aren't ashamed of anything."

Venice due to a series of rain delays and rescheduled games didn't finish its district tournament until Thursday night. Still, the All-Stars scored four runs immediately after the game began. After ringing its run count up to seven, Venice saw its batters go down in order in the bottom of the fifth before Bonita nearly put together a rally in the final inning.

Kevin and Hogan Long each singled to put runners in scoring position with no outs for Bonita, but Brian Lawhon struck out and Ryan Schatzman followed suit looking at a pitch that was nearly in the dirt. The Long brothers advanced to third and second during the next at bat, but Tyler Vail failed to put the bat on the ball, striking out to end the game.

"We can come back and win both games tomorrow and still have a chance, we just have to play to our potential," Bonita manager Rodd Vail said. "We haven't played a meaningful game in 10 days, and Venice just played a big double-header yesterday, so that may have had something to do with things."

A similar hope is shared by Trombley, whose team will play Venice in South's first game Saturday morning. Greater Naples opens against Bonita.

"We just got behind in the count too much tonight," he said. "We can win when we get some good pitching, but tonight they had guys that were throwing the ball hard and hitting their spots."