The men’ s golf team wrapped up its fall season this past weekend at the Lincoln Mercury Invitational at the River Course of Fiddler’s Elbow Country Club in Bedminster, N.J. The Wildcats finished third place finish out of the 18 team field.

The River Course presented a par-72, 7,014-yard challenge for the ‘Cats who played over 36 holes in two days.

The other 17 teams Villanova found themselves competing against included Binghamton, Colgate, Delaware, Drexel, Fairleigh Dickinson, Fordham, Lafayette, Lehigh, LIU, Monmouth, Rider, Rutgers, Saint Francis (Pa.), Saint Peter’s, Seton Hall, Temple and Wagner.

The first day of play on Saturday, Oct. 16 was marred by extremely windy conditions.

However, the Wildcats found themselves sitting at third place overall, two strokes behind eventual-winner Binghamton and four strokes behind Temple. The Wildcats shot a 12 over par, 300 throughout the first round.

Leading the way for the ‘Cats as they have done all season were junior Brian Colbert and senior Conor Casey.

Colbert and Casey shot a first-round 73, which was good enough for one over par and fifth place overall. Other notable finishes for the ‘Cats throughout the first day of play were senior Brendan Kelly (75, +3), sophomore Steve Skurla (79, +7) and sophomore Michael Kania (82, +10). Kelly, Skurla, and Kania rounded off the Wildcats’ first round with standings of T-19th, T-43rd, and T-69th respectively.

The second round of play was Colbert’s day, as he posted a brilliant par-72 performance.

This placed him with an overall score of 145 (+1), which was good enough for four strokes behind the leader from University of Delaware, Justin Marthson (141, -3).

For Villanova, Kelly improved two strokes on his performance from the first round and shot a 73 (+1). Rounding out the top five for the ‘Cats’ scoring was Casey (73-76-149, +5), Skurla (79-78-157, +13), and Kania (82-78- 160, +16). Kelly, Casey, Skurla, and Kania earned T-11th, T-13th, T-50th, and T-64th respectively.

Also competing for Villanova, but not factoring into the scoring, was senior Colin List who posted consistent rounds of 81 and 81. He finished with an overall score of 162, which placed him tied at 74th overall.

Villanova finished with a cumulative score of 599, managing 23 over par for the weekend. Atop the leader-board was Binghamton (587), who surpassed Temple on the final day of play by shooting a blistering 289.

Temple finished off the weekend with a total score of 592, seven strokes ahead of the ‘Cats.

The Wildcats are now done for the fall season and will return back to action in the spring.