ASHTON – Coming into the IHSA Class 1A Ashton-Franklin Center Regional Semifinal on Wednesday, May 15, the Amboy baseball team had defeated AFC twice earlier in the season.

The clichés about playing an opponent a third time rang true for the No. 4-seeded Clippers as they fell 8-5 to the No. 6 Raiders.

“It’s definitely hard to beat a team three times in a row. That’s something we told them this last week to prepare for this, not to take anything for granted, and we had to play a solid game,” said Amboy coach Chris Tidmore. “I think AFC had some things go their way like balls taking crazy hops we couldn’t do anything about. There are things that are out of our hands. AFC was able to overcome things that we weren’t able to.

“The biggest thing was we had six walks in the first three innings. That puts you in a bad position. We didn’t make them earn their runs in the first couple innings. In the end, those were the ones that mattered in crunch time.”

Amboy (10-13) found itself in a 6-0 hole after the top of the fifth inning as AFC scored a run in the second, one in the third, three in the fourth, and one in the fifth on seven of 10 walks and four of six errors by Amboy in the game.

The Clippers scored three runs in the fifth to cut the deficit to 6-3.

AFC scored two in the sixth and Amboy scored two in the seventh to round out the game’s scoring.

The Clippers graduated five seniors in Whelchel, Landon Montavon (losing pitcher against AFC with four walks, one earned run allowed in two innings), Cole Larson, Elisio Vazquez-Tapia, and Austin Shugars.