Drury University men's golf coach Kellen Mast on Wednesday announced the signing of Glendale High School standouts Nathan Fredrick and Nick Sheppard to NCAA letters-of-intent to compete for the Panthers starting with the 2008-09 season.
Fredrick and Sheppard are both four-year lettermen and key members of a Falcons' squad that captured the Missouri Class 4 state championship in 2007, with Sheppard tying for fifth individually and Fredrick sharing 10th place. They also helped Glendale to a fourth-place finish as freshmen in 2005 and third place as sophomores in '06, when Sheppard finished 11th and Fredrick 16th.
"As a package, Nathan and Nick come off a former state championship team at Glendale and both are very big on team performance before individual performance," Mast said. "Both have been fixtures on the junior golf scene on a local, regional and national level for years, and we feel like they'll be a tremendous fit with the returning group of players we have at Drury. I also believe we haven't seen their best golf yet. I think as they start to compete at the collegiate level, their games are going to elevate.
"Our golf program today just got a whole lot stronger and took a big stride in competing both on the regional and national levels."
This season, Fredrick captured the Ozark Conference championship with a 1-over-par 73 this spring while Sheppard was fifth with a 78 at the Rivercut Golf Course, helping the Falcons to the team title as well. Sheppard won the individual OC title (also with a 73) as a junior in 2007, when Glendale also captured team honors.
Among Sheppard's highlights this season was a victory in the Springfield Invitational with a 3-under-par 69 at Rivercut, good for a victory over a trio of players at 71, including the past two Missouri Class 4 state champions (Kevin Kring of Central, Daily Young of Hillcrest) as Glendale again captured the team crown.
Both have been active during the summers on both the Missouri Golf Assocation and American Junior Golf Association circuits. Fredrick was the runner-up in last year's Springfield Golf Association City Championship.
Drury loses just one senior, Brandon Machicao, from a squad that finished second in the Great Lakes Valley Conference Championships. Thomas Hay was named the league's Freshman of the Year after finishing second, while freshman Andrew Funk placed fourth. Hay later went on to earn an individual bid to the NCAA-II Super Regional in Findlay, Ohio.