Masyn Kuder has pitched in plenty of big games for Coal City in her four-year varsity softball career, and before her senior season comes to an end, she’ll be pitching in a few more.

But before the Coalers head into their final two regular season games against a pair of ICA-ranked Class 3A teams in Ottawa and Morris, and then head into the Class 2A Manteno Sectional looking for their fifth straight regional title, Kuder made the final Illinois Central Eight Conference game of her career one to remember on Tuesday.

She allowed seven scattered hits and struck out five in a complete-game shutout of Reed-Custer (15-9, 9-5), leading the visiting Coalers (17-13, 8-6) to a bounce-back win and a split with the Comets in the final ICE series of the year after Reed-Custer won Monday’s game 8-1.

“It feels good,” Kuder said. “I feel like our team was together more today than yesterday, and I feel like we made a lot less errors today than yesterday. I think we just came out and wanted to win.”

While the Coaler defense may have let Kuder down a bit in Monday’s game with the Comets, committing four errors, they picked their pitcher up on Tuesday and recorded 16 outs without a miscue.

With the game still scoreless in the bottom of the third inning, left fielder Sydney Larson threw out Reed-Custer’s Adalyn Steichen at home to keep the Comets off the scoreboard.

Two batters later with the bases loaded, second baseman Leah Jensen snagged a line drive high above her head that looked to be headed for the gap in right-center.

That catch ended the inning, and the Coalers rallied for three runs in the top of the fourth to take control of the game.

“It felt good that they came out and wanted to play today,” Kuder said. “Especially Sydney’s throw. That was a really good throw and saved us a run.”

Head coach Rodney Monbrum said it was nice to see another strong outing from Kuder, who he felt pitched well Monday despite the 8-1 loss.

“Yesterday I thought she pitched well,” he said. “I know she gave up three home runs, but they all should’ve been solo shots to hold them to three runs. But we just made error after error after error, and they made it hurt.

“...I knew we could come out here and compete today, and i was proud of how she kept us in the game offensively and defensively.”

Kuder helped the Coalers get on the board in the fourth with a double sent Khloe Picard, who singled, to third. The throw back to the infield got away and allowed Picard to score the go ahead run.

Addison Harvey followed that up with a triple down the line to drive in Kuder and an RBI groundout from Leah Jensen sent Harvey home for the final run.

Harvey, who added a double in the sixth, said she felt the team did a good job putting the ball in play consistently, even if it took a while to get results.

“Bouncing back from yesterday was big for us, and we’re just trying to keep going on,” she said. “I think we were having pretty good contact throughout the whole game, it was just finding the open spots [in the fourth] and collecting our hits all together.”

The fourth inning was the only one where the Coalers had multiple hits off Reed-Custer ace Sophia Moyers, despite striking out just three times as a team.

Moyers also went 1 for 3 for the Comets while Kamryn Wilkey was 2 for 4. Amber Syc and Mackenzie Foote each had a double.

While the loss was a disappointing end to conference season, the Comets put up their most conference wins as members of the ICE and most since they went 10-4-1 in the Interstate Eight Conference in 2019.

They’ve done this without a senior on the roster, and as the season winds down, head coach Madison Hiestand said she is ready for her young Comets to keep competing.

“The thing is to use all we’re learning this year so next year we can be even bigger competitors and we can hang with some of the bigger teams in our regional,” she said. “I think these girls have it in them to do that now, and they’ve been slowly proving it to themselves next year. Next year it’s only going to be bigger.”