SPRINGFIELD, Ore.—Senior veterans Andrew Marston (Wayne, Pa.) and Nathan Rodriguez (Tempe, Ariz.) each tallied top-25 overall finishes to lead Villanova in a strong field of teams at the Bill Dellinger Invitational on Saturday morning.  The first real test of the 2019 season for the Wildcats resulted in an eighth place team finish at Pine Ridge Golf Club, where six nationally-ranked squads were among the 14 teams that lined up for the race. 
 
Villanova is not expected to have its full lineup in action together until next month but still had a solid showing in Saturday's meet.  Marston and Rodriguez were joined by junior Martin Barr (Skokie, Ill.), redshirt freshman Jack Fredian (Arlington Heights, Ill.) and sophomore Josh Phillips (Belrose, Australia) to round out the Wildcats five scoring runners.  Four of the nine runners in action for Villanova registered personal best times for an 8,000 meter course. 
 
Marston crossed the finish line in 23:59.6 to place 22^nd out of 143 runners while breaking 24 minutes for the second time in his career and the first time since the Chile Pepper Festival in Arkansas nearly three years ago.  Rodriguez was making his Wildcats cross country debut and covered the 8K course in a personal best time of 24:05.4 to finish in 25^th place.  The graduate transfer from Iowa State is in his second year at Villanova but missed the 2018 cross country season due to injuries.  He competed for the Wildcats during the 2019 outdoor campaign.
 
The rest of the scorers in the Villanova lineup each had strong results in Saturday's race.  Barr matched a personal best effort by finishing as the Wildcats third scoring runner for the second time.  He finished 50^th overall and had a time of 24:29.8, 10 seconds faster than he had previously run an 8K cross country race.  Fredian ran in the team lineup for the first time and came in 53^rd overall in 24:31.6.  The redshirt freshman earned a roster spot last fall after being a member of the Villanova club running team. 
 
Phillips continued to show promise in his season debut after a successful freshman year of competition.  He finished in 24:41.5 to place 62^nd in the field of runners.  Fellow sophomore Charlie O'Donovan (Cork, Ireland) also competed for the first time this season and recorded a time of 24:57.0.  He was followed across the finish line less than a second later by junior Nick Steele (Harvard, Mass.) with a time of 24:57.9, while redshirt freshman Patrick Spychalski (Mount Pleasant, S.C.) and junior Rob Morro (Media, Pa.) rounded out the Wildcats contingent.  Spychalski posted a time of 25:29.7 and Morro finished in 25:38.4.
 
Villanova was competing against No. 2 BYU, No. 7 Portland and No. 11 Oregon among others in the loaded meet.  The host Ducks captured the team title by a six-point margin, while the second-ranked Cougars produced the individual champion in Conner Mantz (23:24.7).  The meet represented the Wildcats first west coast swing during cross country season since 2014 and the team's first appearance at the Bill Dellinger Invitational in 10 years. 
 
Next up for Villanova will be a far shorter trip to Lehigh for the Paul Short Run next Saturday.  The annual meet at Goodman Campus Course takes place at the site of this year's NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional.  Next week's meet begins with an open race at 9:30 a.m., followed by the men's Gold race at 11 a.m.