The Coal City boys basketball team entered Tuesday’s clash at Herscher without a win in the Illinois Central Eight Conference.

Whether it was the opposition making a big 3-pointer to swing momentum or their own offense suffering a second-half cold stretch, they saw three of those losses come by five points or less, including a three-point loss to the same Tigers team they faced Tuesday.

The Coalers finally saw their fortune flipped, as Carter Nicholson gave the visitors the big 3-pointer as part of an all-Coalers end to the third quarter that was enough to get them over the hump with a 60-47 win.

“All of our conference games we have these four-minute spurts where we can’t score at all,” said AJ Kenney, who had a game-high 16 points. “I feel like we played a full 32 minutes of basketball tonight.”

A back-and-forth first half saw the Coalers (9-11, 1-8) lead 16-15 after a quarter and the Tigers (8-14, 3-7) up 27-26 at halftime, but after the Tigers’ Tanner Jones knotted things at 33 with five minutes left in the third, the Coalers made the run they’d seen their opponents make on them in earlier games.

They scored the last 12 points of the quarter, with Nicholson’s 3-pointer quickly followed by a fast break layup off of an ensuing Tigers’ turnover to turn a neck-and-neck tilt into a double-digit affair for almost all the fourth quarter, with the Tigers briefly trimming their deficit to nine points on a pair of occasions.

“It’s seemed like all year everyone has had that one 3-pointer against us that goes down, and we finally had that one,” Coalers coach Joe Micetich said. “Nicholson hit it to extend that lead, give us room to breathe a bit, just spread out, not foul them and not give up 3s.”

Nicholson, who agreed that his late triple was the momentum shifter they’ve been looking for, spread the credit out amongst a Coalers team that saw seven players score at least five points, including the five he scored.

“Just team chemistry,” Nicholson said. “Our effort on defense and offense tonight was really good.”

After Kenney’s 16 points, Dane Noffsinger added eight, Parker Jacovec and Carter Gill each had seven and Gavin Berger and Braden Walker each adding six.

The Tigers also got good offensive balance Tuesday. Jones’ 11 points led the way, followed by 10 from Buckley, eight from Tyler Lundberg and five apiece from Alek Draper, Gavin Hull and Brock Berns. But Herscher coach Drew Boudreau thought his team gave up a little too much in the margins, something that no team can afford to do in a balanced conference.

“Our conference is wide open this year,” Boudreau said. “Every coach we talk to says anyone can (win) on any night. That’s what makes our conference nice, and we love it, but that also means you have to show up every night.

“There is no gimme, and I thought tonight was back and forth until the third quarter, and we let them go when they got hot there,” he added. “I think the two things that stuck out were effort on the glass – they outworked us – and turnovers.”

The Coalers will look to find sustained conference success when they host Reed-Custer Friday. The Tigers have a trio of nonconference road games to close out the week, at Gardner-South Wilmington Wednesday, at Beecher Friday and at Gibson City-Melvin-Sibley on Saturday.