Adjusting from high school to college athletics, and earning a starting spot, are no easy feats.

Upon graduating from Brownstown Central in 2013, Drew Shoemaker knew he needed to put in long hours to get playing time on Hanover’s football team.

The freshman put in the work on and off the field, and recently was named a co-recipient of the Defensive Scout Team Player of the Year award.

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“This award means a lot to me because it shows that the hard work I put in during the offseason in the summer and during the season paid off and got me noticed by the players since they are the ones who vote on this award,” Shoemaker said. “It shows that they respect me as a player and want to reward me for my effort. I’m not sure if freshmen normally get rewards, but either way I am extremely proud of this award.”

Shoemaker, who often played defensive end for the Braves, started the season focusing on acting as a defensive scout for the Panthers.

“Defensive scout team is the players who are not rotating in on defense normally who play defense against the starting offense,” Shoemaker said. “We are normally the best players that are not on the starting defense or second-team defense.”

In high school, Shoemaker acquired experience working on both offensive and defensive scout teams for the Braves his freshman and sophomore year.

“I believe scout team is very important because you get to better yourself and battle with the starters, so you have to learn the game faster than you would from just sitting on the sidelines because you must get the starters ready for Friday/Saturday,” Shoemaker said. “Being a scout team player, you have to be willing to try your hardest at all times because you are not ready for the ‘big leagues’ but you are right there. You get to go against the starting offense, so therefore you get experience real quick or else it could be a long season.”

As the season and practices progressed, Shoemaker battled for a starting position with the Panthers.

“When I came on my recruitment here, my coach asked me if I did anything else — like special teams — and I told him I long-snapped in high school,” Shoemaker said. “He said for me to try out once we started going through special teams during practice. I had to compete to get the job and eventually got both long-snapping for punts and short-snapping for point after touchdowns and field goals.”

Once Shoemaker got his start at center on special teams, he made sure he furiously prepared for his new role.

“My first college football game was nerve racking,” Shoemaker said. “It was at center. I was just playing long-snapper, but I remember doing plenty of extra snaps to make sure I did not mess up my first shot at college football. From that point on I always did extra snaps because I did not want to mess up snaps during the game because people will notice that it was my fault.”

With a new role, Shoemaker found that the speed of college football feels much faster than high school.

At first, Shoemaker had a hard time adapting to the speed and toughness of his opponents.

“Eventually you learn how to train yourself to get yourself ready for game speed,” Shoemaker said. “All the players in college are just as good or better than you are. There are not very many guys in college that you can just dominate or take care of play after play. My biggest obstacle was getting the size that I needed and being able to stay as fast to be able to compete at this level.”

Midway through the 2014 season, Shoemaker also got a promotion to play defensive end.

He went on to record five tackles.

“My favorite position is defensive end,” Shoemaker said. “It definitely fits me as a person and my personality and type of play. It puts you right in the action, and you get to hit people which is what I enjoy on the football field. You also have a chance to make big plays but also can go unrecognized which is perfectly fine with me because that is not the type of person I am. I am content with doing my job as long as we get the win.”

With a full college workload, Shoemaker has found ways to balance his academics and athletics.

“It’s difficult, but the coaches here make sure you do it,” Shoemaker said. “We have a program where we must get our Academic Game Plan checked that shows what we have to do during the day and that week so we stay on top of our studies. They do not want to lose anyone to bad grades, so they make sure we are always doing our homework and make sure we are doing well in the class. They check with the teachers quite often.”

With one year under his belt, Shoemaker plans to go into the 2015 season stronger, faster and more intelligent than before.

The NCAA Division III Panthers finished their 2014 campaign at 2-8.