Malta represented by six all stars

The Malta Mustangs football team was well represented at the 2016 Class B Big Sky All-Star Game in Billings at Daylis Stadium. Representing Malta on the North team were Tyson Carney, Antonio Lopez, Allen Williamson, Jase Galt, Kalen Wiebe and Coach Nick Oxarart. The North lost 14-3 to the South Friday, June 10.

The event marked the first football action Galt, a former Mustang quarterback, has seen since he tore ligaments in his knee in the 2016 season finale against Glasgow.

"I'm feeling pretty good," Galt told the PCN. "Definitely fully recovered, I think. I'm definitely a lot stronger than I was and I'm not as fast but it'll get there I think."

Galt may not have been able to rollout as fast as he did in the past but he had fun.

"It was pretty fun," Galt said. "The defense on the south is definitely really good. We had trouble getting stuff done on offense but it was a fun time."

Galt was voted offensive captain for the North offense while Lopez was voted captain of the North's defensive unit.

"Each of us got dorms at Rocky (Rocky Mountain College)," Galt said. "The dorms were pretty hot but it was a pretty fun experience."

Galt is slated to be a quarterback at Montana Tech this fall, so he got a small glimpse of living on campus.

"I think it will be alright up in college," Galt said. "I think I can live with it, it wasn't too bad."

Galt mentioned that the players staying at Rocky had three square meals most days and in the event there wasn't a meal on campus they ventured to different restaurants in the Billings area.

The meals came in handy as the North squad had hour and a half long practices in three a day formats.

"They weren't that tough because it was really hot that week and three a day was a lot but they weren't too hard," Galt said.

Williamson, a former Malta running back agreed.

"It was pretty good," Williamson said. "It was hot with three practices a day but they were pretty short and easy."

Galt said he was pretty familiar with the offensive playbook because many of the sets ran were also sets that were run in Malta.

The defensive playbook was also similar to Malta's as the unit was led by Malta Head Coach Nick Oxarart.

"I had a luxury on defense," Coach Oxarart said. "I had three of my guys and four of Fairfield's guys."

Fairfield was the winner on the 2016 State Title last fall.

"I knew some of their strengths but there were a lot of guys I had never seen before," Coach Oxarart said. "It was a lot of fun coaching the best of Class B, you teach them once and they just get it."

Though the game did not go their way, Coach Oxarart was proud of his defense that only allowed two touchdowns.

"They played their hearts out on Friday," he said. "We came up a little bit short but our defense made a lot of big plays and had a lot of turnovers (forced)."

Williamson also praised his team's defense and his opponent.

"We did pretty good," Williamson said. "The south's defense was stacked. Our defense did good too. If it wasn't for them we would've got clobbered."

The five Mustangs did face off against each other during practice with Carney playing cornerback and Lopez and Wiebe playing in the front seven. Of all of the players on the field the trio knows Galt's tendencies the best.

"Tyson might have gotten the better of me a couple of times," Galt said. "He read me a couple of times but I got a couple of passes on him. He got me twice but they were a couple of flukes."

Williamson had a chance to get a couple of handoffs for Galt in the game and he shared his thoughts on playing with his former teammate one last time.

"It was really good having him," Williamson said. "He was my quarterback. It was pretty good."