ST. LOUIS — All six local golfers competing in the 101st Missouri Amateur Championship have a shot to make it to match play.

But they’re all chasing a player from Kansas.

Drew Lethem, a senior-to-be at Georgia Southern, shot a 4-under 68 that included a hole-in-one on the 178-yard 8th on Tuesday during the first round at WingHaven Country Clubto set the pace.

The top 64 after tomorrow’s second round of stroke play advance to a single-elimination match play bracket.

Lethem — who went to high school in Olathe, Kan., but hails from Camdenton, Mo. — leads Eureka’s Matthew Hines by one entering today’s final round.

A group of five, including St. Joseph’s Brad Nurski and Cameron graduate Andrew Hatten sits two shots back at 1-under.

“You always like to win, but I’d be happy if I shot around even par tomorrow,” said Nurski, who has advanced to match play each of the last three years but never advanced past the round of 32. “That should get you into match play, and see what happens from there.”

Hatten came close to finishing even higher up the leaderboard.

The 2000 Cameron grad carded three birdies in the final four holes of his front 9 to move to 1-under. Two birdies and six pars later, he was one hole away from a 3-under round.

Instead a double-bogey six on the par-4 18th left him in the five-way tie for third.

Nurski took the opposite approach.

Staring on No. 10, Nurski opened with a birdie but added four straight bogeys on 14-17 to finish his first nine 3-over. A 4-under second 9 turned his day around.

“I just kind of went brain dead on that stretch of four straight bogeys,” Nurski said. “I just told myself to make some pars and have some birdies go in and they did.”

St. Joseph’s Brian Haskell also sits in strong position to advance after carding an even-par 72, tied with seven other players for seventh.

Haskell went to 2-over after four holes but was back to even at the turn. The 42-year-old added two more birdies on the backside but offset those, as well, with another pair of bogeys.

Hatten, Nurski and Haskell gave Northwest Missouri three players in the top 15, while Harry Roberts (t-21st), Mitch Girres (t-39th) and Dan Crawford (t-72nd) also finished in the top half of the 156-golfer field.

“It’s always nice to have guys we play with — especially St. Joe guys — doing well,” Haskell said. “We definitely represented ourselves well.”

Roberts, a St. Joseph Country Club member, teed off at 7:30 a.m. — the earliest group out — and went bogey, double bogey on his first two holes. He played the final 16 in 1-under, marred only by a bogey on the closing par 4.

Not far back is Girres, a 2007 Missouri Western graduate.

Girres missed only three greens in regulation but had a hard time making big putts. Starting at No. 10, he played his first nine holes 3-over and didn’t record his first birdie until the 15th hole of his round. The 3 on the par-4 6th moved him back to 3-over, but like Roberts he closed with a bogey to give the shot back.

Despite the lack of birdies, Girres managed to avoid anything worse than bogey.

“I’m just glad to have a chance more than anything,” Girres said. “You can’t obviously win it the first day, but you can surely shoot yourself out of it.

“There was a couple of times I put myself into some bad positions. I recovered and didn’t make any worse than bogey.”

Crawford, a current Missouri Western golfer, has the most work to do. He made just two bogeys on his way to a 6-over 78 that included a double bogey at 11 and a triple at 1.

Like Girres, Crawford started on the backside and fell to 6-over after his triple on the first hole of his second nine. He compounded that with a bogey at No. 2 to go 7-over, but he used just eight putts on his last seven holes that included two birdies and one bogey.

Crawford called the round grueling and knows he needs a better effort today to make his way into match play.

“I just hit the ball very poorly,” Crawford said. “A big part of my game is ball striking, and it just wasn’t there today. I was scrambling all over the place.”

Assistant sports editor Ross Martin can be reached at rossmartin@npgco.com