GREAT FALLS — This year's squad from the East in the annual Montana East-West Shrine Game features all four 6-Man football players that will suit up in Saturday night's game.
All of them are playing the same position as Centerville's Luke Kelley, Denton-Geyser-Stanford's Axel Becker, Box Elder's Tracen Jilot and Bridger's Gage Goltz are each lining up at wide receiver.
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"I ran routes and stuff and concepts at camps," Kelley said at Tuesday's afternoon practice on adjusting from 6-Man to full 11-man. "But it's so much different once you actually get on a practice field with guys who know how to run it and put it all together. So it's a good practice for that."
"There's a lot of different things to learn and concepts and stuff," Becker said. "But I think we got a great coaching staff so ... all of us 6-Man guys are figuring it out."
"It's been a little confusing at first, but I'm starting to get the hang of it," Jilot said. "It's really fun just seeing like how 11-man's played and the big differences between 11 and 6, and it's a good learning experience."
"It's been a lot different," Goltz said. "The play calling and scheme and everything like that, it's a lot different. Took a little getting used to, but I'm getting really comfortable with it. Starting to go really good, and yeah, I'm excited."
It's good experience for all of them to get used to that style of football, especially for Kelley (Montana Tech), Becker (Montana Western) and Goltz (Rocky Mountain) who are each going on to play for a Frontier Conference program (Jilot will play basketball at MSU-Northern).
"It's good practice, I'm excited for it," Kelley said.
"This is huge," Becker said, "because I didn't know very much at all about 11-man."
"I'm super excited to kind of get that head start for myself," Goltz said.
As previously mentioned, these are the only four 6-Man athletes playing in the Shrine Game, and they all recently played in the 6-Man All-Star game at the end of May.
"To have four is something special," Kelley said. "It really shows what we do in 6-Man, we got some athletes."
"It's nice to have people that you're close to and can kind of bond over certain things that you can't necessarily bond with the other guys," Becker said.
"It's pretty cool having familiar faces, looking around and seeing people you know and knowing what they're capable of," Jilot said.
Added Goltz: "It's really special. We kind of get looked down as 6-Man players — you know, people say it's not real football and stuff like that — but coming out here, trying to prove ourselves and hang with the other guys."
East head coach Nick Oxarart said the 6-Man players have adapted well to this style of football.
"They're really learning the game really well," Oxarart said. "It's a little bit different because of different schemes and stuff, but they have just taken it in stride and they're working hard."
The game kicks off at Great Falls Memorial Stadium at 7 p.m. Saturday and will be broadcast live on CBS affiliates across Montana.
