Ninth Metropolitan Team has combination of youth and experience
The Metropolitan Amateur Golf Association has named eight area juniors to represent the Association at the 
9th Mid-America Junior Cup Matches, October 20 and 21 at Loch Lloyd Country Club in Belton, Mo.
Four boys and four girls from the Metropolitan Amateur Golf Association will play two days of match play against their counterparts from the Kansas City Golf Association.
Boys 16-17
Dan Schaller (right), a senior at Chaminade, won the 8th MAGA Junior Amateur Championships at Fox Run Golf Club in July. Schaller defeated Shane Smith, Rolling Hills Golf Club, with a birdie on the first playoff hole after each finished at 1-under 143. Schaller received the Gold Medal and will retain the James M. Holtgrieve Trophy for the next year. Schaller also placed second at the Westfield Junior PGA qualifier, shooting 73-72-145. He tied for 19th at the 2007 Metropolitan Amateur at WingHaven.
In addition to his runner-up at the Metropolitan Junior, Shane Smith, a senior at Alton Marquette, won the 2007 Gateway PGA Tour Championship in August at Crystal Springs Quarry, firing rounds of 72-74-146. Smith, from Godfrey, Ill., was also a third place finisher in the Callaway Junior World Qualifier in June.
Girls 16-17
Catherine Dolan (picture at left; photo courtesy of Rick Graefe/Journal Newspapers) , Meadowbrook Country Club, shot a final-round 75 to hold off Whitmoor’s Molly Edwards to win the 2007 Metropolitan Junior Amateur girls’ title in July. Dolan, a Parkway West student, also won the St. Louis Women’s District Junior Championship in August at Meadowbrook, firing a final-round 71 on her home course. She placed third in the Westfield PGA Junior Qualifier and the Junior World Qualifier. She won the Gateway PGA’s Judy Rankin Award for 2007 low stroke average. In 2006, she was second team all-Metro in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on the strength of a sixth place finish at the 2A state championship.
Meadowbrook’s Jacque Bardgett earned third team honors in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s All-Metro rankings in 2006 for her play at Ursuline Academy. She posted a second this summer at the Lockton/Capitol Federal Kansas City Junior Srixon Qualifier, conducted by the AJGA. She finished second to Dolan at the 2007 St. Louis District Women’s Junior Championship with a 154 total and added a third place finish at the Metropolitan Junior at Fox Run.
Boys 14-15
Nick Langley, a sophomore at Parkway South, helped his Patriot team to a fourth place finish at the 4A state championship last spring. Over the summer, Langley won the 13-15 age group at the Metropolitan Junior at Fox Run, firing back-to-back 74s to win by four strokes. He finished second at the Westfield PGA qualifier in June, firing rounds of 69-77-146 at Innsbrook and won the Gateway PGA’s junior classic 13-15 division at Spencer T. Olin.
Adam Welch finished second to Langley at the Metropolitan Amateur Junior Championship’s 14-15 age group. He won the Gateway PGA’s junior classics at Belk Park and St. Albans this summer, and added a third place finish in the Westfield PGA qualifier in Boys 14-15, firing rounds of 76-73-149. He posted a ninth place finish at the Gateway PGA’s Tour Championship.
Girls 14-15
Sami Kahn of St. Peters, Mo., started her freshman year at Visitation Academy. She fired rounds of 80-89-169 to win the Gateway PGA Tour title in the 14-15 Girls this summer.
Lindsey Eisenreich of Fenton, Mo., has numerous credits on her resume even before starting high school. This summer, the 8th-grader won the Gateway PGA junior classic 13-15 age division and placed third overall at Spencer T. Olin. She finished second in the Gateway’s season-ending Tour Championship at Crystal Springs Quarry and posted a fourth place finish behind Dolan, Edwards and Bardgett at the Metropolitan Junior at Fox Run.
Loch Lloyd Country Club has played host to eight Champions Tour events since opening in the early 1990s. The course features bent grass fairways and greens, a links-style front nine and a more traditional Midwestern tree-lined finishing nine. It is the centerpiece of a planned community located just outside Kansas City, Mo.
Since the inception of the matches in 1999, the Metropolitan Amateur Golf Association's Junior Cup team has enjoyed a 6-1-1 record against their western opponents. The team has boasted a long list of accomplished alums - including 2006 U.S. Amateur runner-up John Kelly, 2007 Metropolitan Women's Amateur champion Whitney Brummett, 2007 Missouri Women's Amateur runner-up Chelsea Schriewer, 2006 Metropolitan Amateur champion Darren Lundgren, Arizona collegiate standout Mary Ellen Jacobs, and 2007 Metropolitan Amateur runner-up Scott Langley.
Did you know?
MAGA Team record
in Junior Cup Matches
6 wins, 1 loss, 1 tie