The Muskegon Clippers had their best regular season in franchise history, setting an all-time league record in winning percentage and only becoming the third team in Great Lakes Collegiate Summer Baseball League history to win 33 games.

The success unfortunately didn’t carry into the postseason.

The Clippers opened the playoffs on Thursday night at home and despite having a strong pitching performance by Jack Decker, they couldn’t muster a run and fell by a 1-0 margin.

In a must win situation in Lima, the Clippers fell behind early and fell just short of a comeback victory, falling to the Locos 6-5 on Friday night.

The Clippers will look forward to next season to earn their first ever postseason win, while the Locos will play the Xenia Scouts next week for the league championship.

Muskegon jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the first inning on an RBI single by Brett Stanley.

The Locos quickly responded in the next half inning, scoring three runs while taking Clippers’ starting pitcher Daniel Gutierrez out of the game after 2/3 innings pitched.

Lima added another two runs in the third inning and another one in the fourth frame to take a 6-1 lead heading into the fifth.

Brandon Scheurer cut into the Clippers deficit in the sixth inning with a two-run single up the middle, then Danny Passinault added an RBI single to cut the Locos lead to 6-4.

The game remained 6-4 until the ninth inning where Stoney Smith opened the frame with a triple, then scored on a sacrifice fly by Stanley with two outs.

The Clippers had the tying run on second base and the go-ahead run on first, but failed to cash either of them in as Lima sealed the victory with a game-ending flyout.

Gutierrez suffered the loss from the mound for the Clippers, while Smith was the only multi-hit batter for Muskegon with two hits, a walk and two runs scored.