Rushing down the floor with 45 seconds to play, Flathead still had a chance to force overtime in its crosstown basketball matchup at Glacier on Friday.

The Braves trailed by six points but seemed to rally some momentum in the game’s final minutes.

Then, they couldn’t find their shot. The Braves rebounded their first miss but cycled the ball around the perimeter for more than 20 seconds before Seth Adolph released a 3-pointer with four seconds to play.

By the time the ball was put back in play, the clock ran out and Glacier had secured the 53-50 win in the final game for both teams in Western AA conference play. It was the seventh straight win for Glacier in the crosstown series.

“That was a miscommunication on our part,” Flathead coach Fred Febach said. “We had something drawn up that just didn’t work. That’s high school basketball.”

Glacier held the lead the entire game but it was never able to pull away.

The Wolfpack started the game on a 7-0 run and often saw its lead build back to that point only for the Braves to rally.

Glacier led 14-9 after the first quarter but Flathead opened the second making three of its first four shots, including two from deep, to tie the game at 17-17.

The Wolfpack held a one-point lead at half and stretched it to nine with a 12-4 run at the end of the third quarter, but didn’t get back on defense and saw Braves forward Trae Habel slip in a layup before the buzzer.

Flathead scored on its first four possessions of the fourth quarter to cut the Glacier lead to 46-43 only to see the Glacier score twice in the next 30 seconds to extend the gap back to eight points.

The Braves defense was strong, holding Glacier without a field goal for the final three minutes of the contest, but Flathead didn’t convert its opportunities to close down the stretch. Flathead made just 2 of 4 free throws in the final minutes and committed a lane violation as Glacier missed the front end of a bonus free throw, giving the Wolfpack the opportunity to stretch its lead back to six points ahead of the final stretch.

“The kids played their hearts out tonight,” Febach said.

“They came out and played a really good basketball game. Unfortunately we came up a few points short. (Glacier) got a quick lead early and we were not really able to overcome that the rest of the game.

“To our kids credit, they battled. They’re disappointed with the loss but it’s still fun. Crosstown is fun.”

While the game got close, Glacier never waivered, often leaning on its massive size advantage in the paint whenever it needed a few buckets to stem any Flathead momentum.

Sophomore forward Jaxen Hashley scored 12 points and pulled in 12 rebounds in the first half alone, including seven offensive boards that led directly to eight points. Senior center Truman Pisk, who at 6-foot-7 is six inches taller than anybody on the Flathead roster, scored all eight of his points after halftime.

Each time the score got within one possession, Glacier found one of its bigs in the paint to extend the lead.

“That was the game going on,” Glacier coach Mark Harkins said.

“Coach (Febach) was playing small, playing with a bunch of guards for dribble penetration. We had to use our height in the post and take advantage of that.”

Hashley and Sam McCamley, who led all scorers with four 3-pointers, each scored 14 points to lead the Wolfpack. Hashley also finished with 14 rebounds to complete his double-double.

Habel and Matt Marshall, who jump started the Flathead offense from deep, both scored a team-high 11 points. Blake Wilson had 10 points for the Braves.

“That really helped us,” Febach said.

“We’ve struggled to score recently and a lot of it is because we need other guys to step up besides Matt Marshall and score. That happened tonight. We had some fairly balanced scoring as a team which is really good for us.”

Flathead, the seventh seed in Western AA, will play at Helena Capital in a state play-in game next week.

Glacier, which currently stands fifth, will play Missoula Big Sky in its play-in, though the location is still to be decided. Big Sky finishes its season at Capital tonight and needs a win to claim fourth place in the final standings. Should the Eagles lose, Glacier would win a tiebreaker and host.

“This was definitely something we needed,” Harkins said.

“We lost a couple in a row and its nice to get one before the playoffs. Now we have to wait to see what happens with the Big Sky-Capital game. Hopefully we’re hosting it at home.”

Flathead 9 15 10 16 — 50

Glacier 14 11 16 12 — 53

FLATHEAD — Matt Marshall 3 3-4 11, Seth Adolph 1 2-3 5, Alex Croymans 2 2-2 7, Blake Wilson 4 1-2 10, Trae Habel 5 1-2 11, Bridger Johnson 3 0-0 6. Totals: 18-47 9-13 50.

GLACIER — Sam McCamley 5 0-2 14, Jaxen Hashley 7 0-1 14, Cain Boschee 1 2-3 4, Taden Gilman 1 2-2 5, Truman Pisk 3 0-0 8, Kade McCutcheon 1 2-2 5, Cody Norberg 1 0-1 3. Totals: 20-37 6-11 53.

3-point goals — Flathead 5-14 (Marshall 2, Adolph, Croymans, Wilson), Glacier 7-14 (McCamley 4, Gilman, McCutcheon, Norberg). Rebounds — Flathead 24 (Croymans 5), Glacier 28 (Hashley 14). Total fouls — Flathead 15, Glacier 13. Fouled out — none.