Malta Falls to Red Lodge

The Malta Mustangs football team is now 1-1 after suffering a 51-12 loss to the Red Lodge Rams on Friday, September 1, at Mustang Field.

The Mustangs will travel to Boulder to take on the Jefferson Panthers on Friday, September 8.

Jefferson is 2-1 so far this season after falling 7-27 to Florence-Carlton in week one, and defeating Cut Bank 35-0 last week.

The last time Malta met Jefferson was last year in the second round of the playoffs. The Panthers defeated the Mustangs 46-14.

This year, the Panthers have returned plenty of talent and Coach Oxarart said that they are still one of the top teams in the state.

"They have a very dominant offensive line and like to control the clock with their run game," Coach Oxarart said. "Quarterback Luke Oxarart, leads their offense and he is a dual-threat with his ability to run and pass the ball. He is also a leader on their defense and we need to know where he is at on every play. Coach Clint Layng and his staff will have Jefferson well prepared for us and we need to be better this week than we were last week in order to have success."

Though the next couple of weeks will be tough considering they will face Jefferson and Missoula-Loyola the following week, Coach Oxarart is confident that Malta can improve.

"We need to focus on getting better each day and clean up the small mistakes we are making," Coach Oxarart said. "The mistakes we are making are fixable and our players are working hard with great effort and I'm very proud of how we have responded to the adversity we have faced early in our season. We are doing a lot of good things and we will continue to build off of it. Injuries have set us back a little bit, but we've had some younger players really step up and are doing their part to help the team."

The team will be without wide receivers Kyle Darrington and Mason Sjostrom who suffered leg injuries in Malta's week one win over Baker.

In Malta's loss to Red Lodge, the Mustangs had a total of 367 yards of offense.

The team was led by Blaine Downing who had 145 yards and one rushing touchdown on 17 rushing attempts. He also had a catch for 14 yards.

Stockton Oxarart threw for 105 yards and one touchdown. He was 9-of-25 and ran for 24 yards on four rushing attempts.

Treyton Wilke had 63 yards on 12 rushing attempts.

Dawson Hammond had three catches for 40 yards and one rush for three yards. Mason Simanton had two catches for 22 yards and one touchdown. Trooper Stiles had six rushing attempts for 29 yards and two catches for 23 yards.

The Rams offense racked up a total of 518 yards.

"We were able to do some good things on Friday night against a very talented team," Coach Oxarart said. "It was a tight back and forth battle until we made a few too many mistakes against a good team and they were able to capitalize on them. We gave up too many points in the second quarter and were not able to execute well enough to recover from it. Our inexperience showed at times, but we will learn from it and get stronger week by week."

Scoring Summary:

1) Red Lodge: 1st Qtr: (5:36) Kougar Kappel 1 yd run, (Owen Reynolds kick) (RLHS 7 MHS 0)

2)Malta: 1st Qtr: (2:48) Blaine Downing 28 yd run (kick failed) ( RLHS 7 MHS 6)

3) Red Lodge: 1st Qtr: (0:51) Kappel 38 yd pass from Thomas Buchanan, (kick blocked) (RLHS 13 MHS 6)

4) Malta: 2nd Qtr: (11:21) Mason Simanton 13 yd pass from Stockton Oxarart, (run failed) (RLHS 13 MHS 12)

5) Red Lodge: 2nd Qtr: (8:58) Reynolds 6 yd run, (Chase Cook run) (RLHS 21 MHS 12)

6) Red Lodge: 2nd Qtr: (3:09) Reynolds 1 yd run, (Buchanan run) (RLHS 29 MHS 12)

7) Red Lodge: 2nd Qtr: (1:13) Walker Boos 40 yd pass from Buchanan, (Reynolds run) (RLHS 37 MHS 12)

8) Red Lodge: 2nd Qtr: (0:19) Stran Lytton 6 yd pass from Buchanan, (Reynolds kick) (RLHS 44 MHS 12)

9) Red Lodge: 4th Qtr: (4:25) Reynolds 60 yd run, (Reynolds kick) (RLHS 51 MHS 12)