Mustangs at All-Star Game and Camp

The Malta Mustangs football team won't see their first opponent until they see Shepherd on Friday, August 24 in Malta, but the team; current, new and newly graduated have been busy in June.

Newly graduated Mustangs Trace Simonson, Trey Simanton, Tel Jensen, and Konner Kuehn recently played their final game in Mustang blue at the 2018 Big Sky Class B All-Star Game in Billings on June 8.

In a yearly game that pitted the best of the North against the best of the South, the South defeated the North 25-12, after trailing the North 12-6 late in the game.

The North was led by Malta's own Jim Benn, who had coached with fellow Mustang coach Travis Somerfeld, who coached the defensive backs, two Loyola coaches, and one Fairfield coach.

“It's just a fun week with a bunch of great kids,” Coach Benn said. “I would say that the vast majority of them are not necessarily going on to play college sports.”

Though the game presents the team with a chance for bragging rights, it also gives athletes one thing that many wish they could have had last fall.

“It gives kids the chance to play that last football game in a great atmosphere,” Coach Benn said. “It's just a fun week.”

For Simonson, Simanton, Jensen, and Kuehn, it gave them a chance to integrate with athletes that they had opposed in previous years.

“It was great because we had played Fairfield, Shelby and Glasgow,” Coach Benn said. “To hang around those kids and get to know those guys that maybe they didn't think that they liked but discovered that there were many similarities between themselves and those kids.”

It was coach Benn's fifth time coaching in the annual event and third time as a head coach.

Last Monday, June 11, twenty-two of the current Malta Mustangs left Malta at 5 a.m. to attend The University of Montana Western in Dillon's annual football camp.

“We drove the 425 miles to Dillon and had camp until Thursday (June 14) at noon,” Coach Benn said. “We jammed in quite a bit of football.”

The camp presented the Mustangs a few days to work out with about twelve other high school football teams from around the state. According to Coach Benn, there were about 250 kids present.

“They did several different things,” Coach Benn said. “There were camp competitions, 7-on-7 drills, they did individual drills both on offense and defense, we had different scrimmage formats that we followed. Sometimes you would run one play at a time, sometimes you would do drives. There were a lot of different ways to work on things that we needed to work on to get better for the season.”

Malta had 37 athletes on last year's team, so the ability to take a good chunk of athletes to the camp presented Coach Benn and fellow Mustang Coach Kevin Ebert with a chance to evaluate and coach many key athletes.

“We had everything from guys that were returning as two-way starters to freshmen who are just starting to understand the game,” Coach Benn said. “We were trying to find valuable things for those guys to work on and I think it was a good experience for everybody.”

Coach Benn named one mustang who had been making strides for the team in Dillon, junior Franky Werk, a two-way lineman.

“He's a guy that hopefully, we will be able to run behind,” Coach Benn said. “He is a great big offensive lineman and he is really pleased with his progress from where he was last year to this year. At camp, he was jumping into every drill and we are really excited about what he is going to do for us this year.”

Coach Benn also noticed that this year's upcoming senior class made an impact last week, knowing that they will have big holes to fill from last season's senior class.

“I've been really pleased with our senior class, they've been busy all spring in the weight room,” Coach Benn said. “We had a great contingent out for track & field. Most kids either wrestled or played basketball.”

Coach Benn also spoke well about the group's character.

“They are a positive group of leaders,” he said. “A majority of those leaders went to camp. I am really pleased with their effort and attitude about things.”

Malta's next camp will be in July as the team hosts their Mustangs Football Camp.