GREAT FALLS — Scoring goals in soccer and kicking field goals in football are two very different skills, but Great Falls CMR Rustlers soccer player and football player Trey Mans makes both look pretty easy.
“It’s fun and I enjoy kicking with these guys and having fun with both the soccer team and the football team,” Mans said.
Through five games with the Rustlers, Mans has only missed one PAT and has made three field goals including a week one game winner over Missoula Hellgate, where they won 37-35.
“I tell Trey he’s a weapon and I want him to know that every time we get the ball inside the 25 yard line and we need three points, I’m calling on Trey Mans and I know he’s going to be good,” CMR head coach Dennis Morris said.
In the offseason, Morris was looking to fill the kicker role which led him to focus his recruiting efforts on the soccer team, where he was able to persuade Mans to give it a try.
“We were a little short in the kicking game so I put a little bug in his ear and he came to us last spring and said hey coach I’d like to try that,” Morris said. “He kicks the mess out of the soccer ball so we thought we’d be able to teach him how to kick a football.”
“I started kicking a month and a half to two months before football season. I started going to our weight trainings and lift trainings at 6:30 in the morning and then after we’d have grass time is what they’d call it and I’d go practice kicking,” Mans said.
As fun as it is to be a go to scoring option on the soccer pitch and lights out on the football field, the balancing act of the two has been a time-consuming effort for Mans.
“I get out of school and go straight to football and then I leave as soon as I can. Then we do PAT or whatever and then go to soccer practice, then games. Thursday I have soccer, Friday I kick for the football team, then Saturday I’m playing for soccer again,” he said.
The Rustlers football team is 4-1, with Mans' deadly leg being a big contribution to the success. He's hit 16 of 17 PATs and three of four field goals.
The football team is back at home Friday night as they as they host Bozeman Gallatin at 7 p.m. in Memorial Stadium while the soccer team plays Bozeman Gallatin Saturday afternoon at Seibel Soccer Park in Great Falls at 12 p.m.
