A nonconference matchup between two of Class AA’s top boys basketball teams lived up to its billing as No. 4 Great Falls C.M. Russell escaped Flathead High School with a 57-55 win over No. 5 Flathead Saturday.

Flathead forward Shea Schroeder had an open look at a game-winning three-pointer at the buzzer, but his shot bounced off the front of the rim. Schroeder said the play was designed to go to Chandler Escalante, who was running off a screen, but Escalante couldn’t get open. The second option, 6-foot-8 center Garth West, was also covered, so point guard Blaine Newman found Schroeder on the perimeter.

“We were looking to run a double-screen to Chandler to come across and hit the three, but they played it well,” Schroeder said. “The ball got swung to me and I had an open look, but it didn’t fall.”

Flathead coach Fred Febach credited CMR’s man-to-man defensive pressure with disrupting his team’s final possession.

“They made us scramble a little bit,” he said. “Shea had a wide-open look, you can’t fault that. Sometimes they drop, sometimes they don’t, so the credit goes to CMR. They are an awfully good team.”

Flathead (4-2 overall, 2-0 Western AA) trailed by as many as eight points in the fourth quarter, but a 7-0 run that included three free throws by Newman, a fast-break layup by Will Cronk and a tip-in by Matthew Tokarz cut CMR’s lead to one with 56 seconds remaining.

CMR’s Jayse McLean converted a pair of free throws to extend the Rustlers’ cushion to three with 54.9 seconds left. On Flathead’s ensuing possession, the Braves tried to get Newman, who had connected on 2 of 4 three-point attempts, a game-tying three, but Newman couldn’t shake his CMR defender.

“We were running our play, a double back screen for the opposite guard, but their pressure just kind of threw us off and we didn’t execute it,” Newman said.

Unable to get an open look from behind the three-point line, Newman eventually drew a foul and converted both free throws to cut Flathead’s deficit to 56-55 with 20 seconds on the clock. McLean split a pair of free throws at the other end before Schroeder missed at the buzzer.

“We learned a lot about ourselves as a team,” Schroeder said. “We can compete with anyone in the state. They’re a great basketball team and so are we, but they came out on top tonight.”

Six-foot-2 guard Joey Marzion led CMR (8-1, 2-0 Eastern AA) with 20 points, including two three-pointers and a dunk. He entered the game averaging 18.8 points.

“He lights everyone up,” Febach said of Marzion. “I don’t know if there’s a shot out there he doesn’t like. He’s just a good offensive player, and if you don’t locate him, you don’t make him work and you give him free looks, he’s going to burn you for it, and certainly he did that tonight. It’s not that we weren’t trying, we just lost him sometimes.”

West led Flathead with 16 points on 6 of 9 shooting. Newman scored 15 points.

CMR was 17 of 23 (74 percent) from the free throw line while Flathead was 12 of 22 (54 percent), and Febach said that might have been the difference where little else separated the two teams.

“I think that was the difference in the game,” he said. “They hit free throws, we didn’t hit them very well.”

Both teams varied their defense throughout the game, switching from zone to man-to-man to full-court pressure. Febach said CMR’s defensive variety coaxed Flathead into a few bad decisions.

“It’s not so much to get steals or anything like that, it’s simply to control tempo and force you to slow down and think a little bit, and then maybe start to force things,” he said. “At times we did that and that hurts.”

CMR was guilty of the same sins against Flathead’s defense and finished with 20 turnovers, compared to 22 for the Braves.

While his team came up short, Febach said the fourth-quarter run and the close final score should give his team confidence in future games.

“You’re looking at that team out of Great Falls, that CMR group, as one of the top two teams in the east. I thought we competed very well with them, we had an opportunity to win the ballgame late, which is all you can ask, and that’s huge for us.”

Flathead hosts Class A Columbia Falls on Tuesday.

C.M. Russell 11 15 17 14 — 57

Flathead 13 9 17 16 — 55

C.M. RUSSELL - Joey Marzion 8-15 2-2 20, Jayse McLean 3-4 9-11 16, Anthony Bonilla 3-6 0-0 6, Tanner Olsen 1-4 3-3 6, Andre Langhorne 3-9 0-1 6, Daekwon Carter 0-1 2-4 2, Eric Dawson 0-2 1-2 1, Josh Horner 0-3 0-0 0.

FLATHEAD - Garth West 6-9 4-7 16, Blaine Newman 3-9 7-11 15, Chandler Escalante 3-5 1-2 8, Matthew Tokarz 2-3 0-0 4, Will Cronk 2-2 0-0 4, Adam Bradley 2-4 0-0 4, Kaleb Cannaday 1-2 0-0 2, Shea Schroeder 1-3 0-1 2.

3-pointers - CMR 4-15 (Marzion 2, McLean, Olsen), Flathead 3-9 (Newman 2, Escalante). Rebounds - CMR 19 (Olsen 6, Langhorne 3), Flathead 27 (West 7, Tokarz 6, Schroeder 5). Assists - CMR 5 (Bonilla 2), Flathead 13 (Newman 6). Blocks - CMR 0, Flathead 2 (Tokarz, West). Steals - CMR 9 (Marzion 4, Dawson 2), Flathead 13 (Schroeder 5, Newman 4). Fouls - CMR 18, Flathead 20. Technical fouls - none. Fouled out - Horner, Tokarz.