AMBOY – Heading into the Class 1A Amboy Regional Semifinal against No. 2-seeded Annawan on Wednesday, Feb. 26, Amboy coach Tyson Powers and his No. 7-seed squad, knew it was going to be an uphill climb.

It proved to be too steep as Clippers fell to the Braves 66-42. The loss ends Amboy’s season with a 13-19 record.

“Matching up with them in the first round of the regionals last year, we knew what we were up against,” Powers said. “We knew they were going to play hard. They’re very good defensively and they weren’t going to make things easy on us. You don’t expect that from anybody this time of year, especially the further you get in the postseason.

“Annawan is really well coached. Alex Coppejans does a really good job for them. It was just one of those nights where every time we made a push to get back into the game, we couldn’t get over the hump.

“That’s what good teams do. When they made a run, they were able to stop ours on the other side of the ball. Unfortunately for us, it just wasn’t our night.”

Amboy trailed 17-6 after the first, 38-23 at halftime, and 55-33 after three quarters.

In the semifinal, senior Eddie Jones led the Clippers with 16 points, junior Ezra Parker tallied 10, freshman Bryson Deery had six, senior Quinn Leffelman added five, freshman Landon Carter made a 3-pointer, and sophomore Colt McCoy chipped in two points.

By scoring 16 points in his final game as a Clipper, Jones finishes his high school career with 1,192 points, which puts him as fifth on the Amboy all-time scoring list.

Powers jokes around about Jones coming up a few points shy of his old basketball coach as Powers sits in fourth.

“I told them in the locker room after the game, ‘Don’t let this loss define us. We did a lot of good things this year. That’s what we need to look back at and what we need to be proud of.’ We took a lot of steps forward and we did a lot of great things through the season,” Powers said. “You can’t take those steps if you don’t have good kids and good leadership. We had both. I give the kids all of the credit. They bought in and did everything we asked of them. I’ really proud to be their basketball coach.”

The regional quarterfinal victory over Hiawatha was the first postseason win by the Amboy boys basketball team since the 2017-18 season.

Winning 13 games in the 2024-25 campaign makes it the most winningest season for the Clippers since the 2006-07 season.

“We’re going to miss our six seniors (Jones, Brody Christoffersen, Tyler Huggins, Kabe Daniels, Leffelman, and Carson Barlow) because of the leadership they brought to the team,” said Powers, who now starts his second year as the Amboy frosh/soph baseball coach. “I told them, ‘When we start winning regionals and advance further in the postseason, this group of seniors is the group we’ll look back to and say those six guys laid the foundation for the program.’

“I wish we could have another few years with them, but I’m really proud of those six kids for sticking it out and giving us coaches a chance. It was a fun year. I wish we were still playing. It was a fun year and I think they got a glimpse of where we can go on the basketball court in the future.”