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Two youth league teams will travel to opposite ends of Florida this weekend with very different sets of expectations but the same goal: a state championship.

The Greater Naples Little League 9- and 10-year-old baseball all-stars and the Naples Braves Junior League softball all-stars (13-14) are both Section 6 champions. Each team finished undefeated in its respective sectional to advance to this weekend’s state finals.

Both group of all-stars will battle seven others for the right to move on to regionals. For one of the local teams, though, the state finals are nothing new. For the other, this is a whole new ball game.

The Naples Braves see their trip to the Melbourne-area finals as carrying on their league’s tradition. The Braves have gone to every state tournament since 1988, except for 1998 when Naples didn’t have a junior team.

Naples won the Junior League World Series in 2006, 2001 and 2000. In all age groups combined, the Naples league has 18 World Series titles and has gone to 27 in the past 30 years.

The Braves open the state tournament at 5:30 p.m. today against Section 4 champ Bloomingdale at Viera/Suntree. The finals consist of two pools of four teams each. Following pool play, the top two teams from each group advance to Monday’s semifinals.

The semifinals are at 10 a.m. Monday, followed by the championship game at 1 p.m.

While this year’s local players know they can’t expect to win simply by showing up, the Braves are clear on what their goal is.

“I think our expectations are where they should be,” Naples Braves coach Jeff Stepanovich said. “We’ve emphasized throughout the year our goal is the World Series. We don’t want (the players) to think it’s unrealistic. The end result of all their hard work is to get to the World Series.”

This same team lost in the state semifinals last summer and fell in the title game in 2005. This weekend’s winner moves on to the USA South Regional in Fort Myers in two weeks. This year’s World Series is in Kirkland, Wash.

As the Braves look back on past experience to guide them, the Greater Naples 9-10s can’t even look to their own league for advice on how to approach state. That’s because with Saturday’s victory over Venice National in the Section 6 baseball tournament, the team became the first sectional champion in Greater Naples Little League’s 50-year history.

Manager Chad Ott said the reality of his team’s accomplishment hasn’t set in yet. While he’s explained the significance of this first state finals, Ott said it might be too much for a group of 9- and 10-year-olds to grasp.

“I’m not sure I fully comprehend it to be honest,” Ott said. “We know it’s an honor because we’ve never been in the state finals, but we don’t know what’s in store, either.”

For its first sectional title, Greater Naples was rewarded with an eight-hour, 550-mile trip into the Florida Panhandle. This weekend’s state finals are in Freeport, which is about 60 miles east of Pensacola on the Gulf.

The 9-10s first game is at noon Saturday against North Springs. Pool play between the eight section champs finishes Sunday, and the top two from each group play in Monday’s semifinals. The championship game will be played Tuesday.

“I think the pressure we have is from ourselves to continue to do what we’ve been working on,” Ott said. “We’re working hard every day. We just have to go about our business and hope at the end of the day we have a team capable of playing with the seven remaining teams in the state.”