HAVERFORD, Pa.—A group of five runners opened the season for Villanova at the Main Line Invitational on Friday evening.  Redshirt freshmen Patrick Craemer (Upton, Mass.) led the Wildcats contingent with a 10^th place finish in the local meet, which serves as a good measuring stick for the team as it prepares for the bulk of the season still to come.  Four redshirt freshmen and one junior were in action for Villanova on the day. 
 
"We had a development team out there and what you want to see from them is progress, which I did see today.  "There was a lot of progress that had been made, guys who are starting to reap the rewards of their summer training, so this was a good start for us." 
 
Craemer covered the four-mile Alumni Course on the Haverford College campus in 20:26.6.  He was followed by classmates Ben Seiple (Westport, Conn.), Nick Ackerman (Manalpan, N.J.), Trevor Potts (Sparta, N.J.) and junior Jacob Bonanotte (Barrington, Ill.) to round out the Wildcats team for the day. 
 
In his first cross country race for Villanova, Seiple came in 15^th overall in the field of 88 runners with a time of 20:38.7.  Ackerman finished 31^st in 21:25.3, while Potts was 40^th overall with a time of 21:43.6 and Bonanotte came in 46^th in 21:50.9. 
 
Friday's meet was a chance for the group to take center stage while much of the team turns its attention to the Bill Dellinger Invitational in Oregon next week.  That meet will be the first time since 2014 that the Wildcats make a west coast trip during cross country season, and the first time since 2009 that Villanova sends a team to the Bill Dellinger meet.