The top four teams in the Illinois Central Eight Conference have played one battle after another this season, with Coal City’s 2-1 win over Herscher on Thursday serving as the latest example.

Coal City, Herscher, Manteno and Peotone have played each other a combined nine times so far this season, including nonconference matchups in tournament play, and the total margin in those contests has been just seven goals.

Three of those games have gone to shootouts, one was a tie and four have been one-score games.

Coal City (16-3, 4-2 ICE) got their latest one-score win thanks to a goal from sophomore Carter Hollis with 12 minutes to go in the game Thursday, putting them up 2-1 on the Tigers (13-4-2, 3-2). It held up as the eventual game-winner as the Coalers bounced back from a 1-0 loss to Peotone two days prior.

“We try to make sure not to hang our heads low after a loss,” Hollis said. “We make sure we always keep our spirits high at practice and lock in so we can maintain playing good, and make sure we’re always on top of our game.”

Leading into Tueday’s loss to Peotone, the Coalers had also gone scoreless in their final two games in the Rivals Cup over the weekend, first against Manteno and then against Peotone. Both games went to shootouts, with Coal City dropping the first game and winning the second.

After a scoreless first half for both teams Thursday, the Coalers finally broke through on the scoreboard with just over 25 minutes to go when Julian Micetich headed in the ball off of a corner kick from Creed Macaluso.

About eight minutes later, Herscher’s Luis Parra tied things up 1-1 after driving through a crowd of defenders and sending it by Coal City keeper Carter Nicholson.

That goal was just the sixth allowed by the Coalers in 19 games this season, and thanks to Nicholson, who was credited with 10 saves, and the play of the team’s experienced back line, Parra and the Tigers would not score again.

“I was telling the defense to just shadow their star player (Parra), just stay on his hip and push him to his opposite foot,” Nicholson said. “They did a wonderful job.”

After posting their best record in over 20 years last season, the Coalers returned all but one player to this year’s team. Head coach Steve McCleary said that experience has been a major factor, especially on the defensive end.

“A lot of these guys have been starting for the last two, three of four years,” he said. “They’ve gotten really comfortable together. And our back line has really gelled this year with Carter in the goal, and they have been absolutely phenomenal. Being able to work all the way through to midfield and the forwards, working as one unit, it’s kind of paid off all around.”

Coal City will wrap the regular season on Oct. 8 with a home matchup with Sandwich.

Herscher will visit St. Anne Saturday morning for a nonconference clash before finishing up ICE play and the regular season against Peotone at home on Oct. 7.

The Tigers had gone 8-1-1 in their 10 games leading up to Thursday, and even through they picked up another loss, head coach Hugo Hernandez was happy with how they competed.

“It’s part of the sport that I fell in love with since I was a kid, that you can do everything right as a player or a coach and still come up short,” he said. “With the boys today, they showed me that, no matter the circumstance, they’re going to play for each other and they’re going to fight for each other.”

Hernandez also said that competitive games like they ones they face in conference play are ideal preparation for upcoming postseason play.

“Those are teams we want to see in the postseason,” he said. “On any given day in this conference, in this sectional, on either side, everybody has the ingredients to go all the way. It just comes down to those one-goal margins, and we saw that today.”