Palm City, Fla. – After a long winter, a little rust was to be expected when the Villanova Wildcats took the course for the first time this spring. Villanova shot 22-over and are in 14^th at the Martin Downs Collegiate at Martin Downs Country Club in Palm City, FL.
 
It took nine holes for the rust to come off for the Wildcats, who filed a team score of 18-over on the front. However, everybody seemed to settle in on the back nine for a team score of just 4-over.
 
Noah Peck and Reb Banas each paced the team through the turn sitting at 3-over. Peck then heated up on the back and shot 1-under, getting himself down to 2-over on the day.
 
Banas's day was plagued by a triple-bogey to open up the back nine, but followed it with back-to-back birdies to leave him at 5-over for the opening round.
 
The story was similar for Matt Minerva, who after carding a quad on his third hole of the day, played the next 14 holes at only 3-over par to come in at 7-over.
 
Jack O'Hara followed suit, going out at 6-over, but played a calmer back nine at 2-over to leave him at 8-over for the day.
 
Playing as an individual, Danny Dougherty was the only Villanova golfer to go against the grain of that trend, and shot an clean even-par front nine with just a bogey and a birdie, but gave a few strokes back on the back nine and finished the day 2-over.
 
Round two of the Martin Downs Collegiate will begin tomorrow morning.