AMBOY – After Ashton Henkel had finished fifth grade, his family moved from Amboy to Byron.

This of course took the student-athlete away from his friends in the classroom and in sports.

However, Henkel and his Amboy friends didn’t let the 33 miles between the towns rupture the bonds they had created. Instead, they made sure to stay in touch.

Now, in their senior year, all involved parties had plenty to talk, text, or Facebook message about as the Clippers won the Illinois 8-Man Football Association State Championship and the Tigers won the IHSA Class 3A State Championship.

“I grew up in Amboy. I lived there until sixth grade, and I still have a lot of family down there. It’s cool. It’s really unique for me to win a state title and my Amboy friends to win a state title in the same year,” Henkel said. “Before the season started, some of the kids in Amboy and I were texting and they said, ‘You should come back to Amboy, we’re going to win a state championship.’ I told them that I thought we had a really good chance in Byron, too. To see it come full circle, both of us win titles, means a lot.

“I did not tell them to move to Byron. They have a great thing going on down there. I was really confident that they would win it based on what I saw their junior year. You could tell they had a chip on their shoulder after losing the championship last year.”

Most of the bonds formed in sports while he was in Amboy happened on the baseball field or basketball court as he didn’t start playing football until sixth grade, when he was in Byron.

However, both Henkel and the Amboy guys know he would have been on the field with them if he stayed in Amboy.

“I haven’t stayed in touch with him as much as some of the other guys, but Ashton and I have had our fair share of texts. It’s always nice to talk to him,” Amboy senior Brennan Blaine said. “I was hoping Byron would win the state title. With Ashton on the team, I wanted Byron to win, for sure.

“Ashton has always been a good athlete. I played different sports with him growing up. I played travel baseball with him, and his dad coached us. I was sad to see him move away because I knew he’d be a big help to us, but I’m happy we both won state titles this year.”

Henkel had actually already had a state title with Byron as they won Class 3A in 2021.

However, Byron fell late in the 2022 postseason, while A-L-O fell in the 8-man final.

With both the Clippers and the Tigers experiencing agonizing loses, the squads commanded the 2023 season as Amboy-LaMoille-Ohio and Byron didn’t lose a game on their way to state trophies.

“Ashton and I are still really good friends. We talk at least once a week. It was weird when he first left, but you kind of just get used to it,” Amboy senior Landon Montavon said. “We still talk to each other a lot, so it’s still close to the same.

“It’s a great feeling to get the championship win, but to see a friend get it done with another team is also a great feeling. It was meant to be. If we would have had him, who knows what we could have done, but it’s good to see we both won titles and are successful.”

During the Byron senior night game against Dixon, some of the Amboy guys had a chance to make it to Henkel’s game because the Clippers weren’t playing.

Landon Whelchel, an Amboy senior, was one of them.

“It’s a good feeling. Ashton and I were close friends until he moved. To see both of us have a lot of success in a sport we love, that’s pretty crazy,” Whelchel said. “Both of us winning a state title is really cool. I had a lot of confidence in him.”

Besides Montavon, Whelchel, and Blaine, Henkel also stays in contact with Quinn Leffelman and Tucker Lindenmeyer, who graduated from Amboy last year.

The Henkel family moved to Byron because Ashton’s father, Matt Henkel, was the Prairieview Golf Club superintendent.

When his father passed away a little more than two years ago, he couldn’t give up playing sports.

“When we lived in Amboy, he had to wake up at 4 a.m. and wouldn’t get home until 5-6 p.m. Moving to Byron really helped him with work and the course,” Henkel said. “He meant a lot to me in the process of me being an athlete. When he would come home from work, we would go to the fields and practice with me. He would give me tips. A lot of my success comes from that. Him believing in me, whether I had a bad game or not, he knew it was part of being an athlete and I had to keep my head high.”

Henkel has one more baseball season left and he’s trying to talk Byron High School into letting him run in a track and field relay team, also, this spring.

With his guardian angel and his friends from Amboy staying in touch, the moves on the field or track come easy.

“When the 5-8 guys came to my senior night game, it means a lot to known they still care and support me even though I’m not with that community anymore,” Henkel said. “To know they still have love for me means a lot.”