NORMAL, Ill. - No. 17/18 Gustavus men's golf made the trek south to Illinois this week for the two-day Illinois Wesleyan Invitational, starting on Friday. 41 teams competed in day one of the event, including two full teams and two individuals for the Gusties. First-year Kyle Peterson (Duluth, Minn.) led the Gusties with a four-under 68 using four birdies and an eagle to do so.

Head coach Scott Moe traveled with 12 players onto the course, split amongst two teams, Gustavus (A) and Gustavus (B), while senior Cole Paulson (Sauk Rapids, Minn.) and first-year Ford Finster (Hermosa Beach, Calif) competed as individuals. Moe had this to say coming into the meet about his thoughts coming into the spring: "Following our fall play, we have put ourselves in a good spot heading into our spring season.  The Illinois Wesleyan event will be a great test with a very deep field.  We will see a number of teams ranked in the top 20 in the country. We then return home for our event and the Saint John's tournament. Our top five has a lot of experience and I think we did some really good things over the winter to prepare for tough competition.  We know we can compete with the best and now we need to go get after it.  Anyone in our lineup can tee it up and win an event and when you have that depth there isn't as much pressure on each player, we can play a little more freely.  We expect good things ahead of us, hoping it leads to a bid for the NCAAs."

Gustavus 'B' sits in second place after the first day at +2, which was played at Ironwood Golf Course. Peterson lit up the scorecard in the first round of his spring season, firing a -4 (68) to sit in second place individually after the first 18 holes. Peterson had four birdies and an eagle on the par-five 11th for a 34-34-68 score. Sophomore Aradheea Gawade (Mumbai, India) had the second lowest score for the team, finishing even par. Gawade double-bogeyed the first hole on his 10th of the day and immediately responded with a birdie to partially wipe that away from the card. First-year Sam LaFrenz (Edina, Minn.) was the third-best score for the 'B' group, shooting a 38-36-74 to finish +2. The last scoring member for the group was first-year Charles Looker (Cottage Grove, Minn.) who shot a 40-46-76 to finish +4. Overall, the group had one eagle and 13 birdies for those scoring, while keeping themselves to only three double bogeys and 11 bogeys for a 290 (+2) through the first day. 

The Gustavus 'A' group sits in 12th place after the first 18 holes, led by sophomore Jimmy Abdo (Edina, Minn.) at -1. Abdo had the other eagle today besides Peterson, eagling the 525-yard par-five 17th hole. This helped bring him under par, sitting at +1 on the day before the 17th and used a par on the last hole of the day to sit in 16th individually. Senior Wyatt Carlson (Wayzata, Minn.) shot a +1 73, 1.5 shots below his season average in the first round of the spring season of his senior year. Both seniors Chris Gutuza (Johannesburg, South Africa) and Pelayo Perez Crespo (Sotogrande, Minn.) shot +4, with Gutuza going 37-39-76 and Perez Crespo going a more even 38-38-76. Gutuza battled back from an eight on the par-five 11th hole, including a birdie on the par-three 16th hole. 

"We continue to talk about taking advantage of par five holes and getting off to a good start and we struggled with both of those today" said Moe. "We found our groove a little bit in the middle, but had already put ourselves in not a great spot. We look ahead to tomorrow and still having the same goal in mind and hoping to move well up the leaderboard. Congrats to Kyle for shooting four under and was -5 on the par fives and is currently in second after day one and our second team is sitting in second place. It's exciting to have that many players perform and looking forward to another day."

Two other MIAC schools are in Normal, Ill. with the Gusties, No. 27 Carleton and No. 32 Bethel. Carleton shot a +3 for third place after the first round and Bethel is not far behind with a +6 to tie for sixth. 

The team comes back tomorrow for the second round to wrap up the Illinois Wesleyan Invitational, competing at the par-71 Weibring Golf Club which played two strokes harder on Friday.