Round 1 Results |

ORLANDO, Fla. - No. 1 Illinois played a solid, consistent first round at the Tavistock Collegiate Invitational and stands in fourth place after 18 holes at the par-72, 7,200-yard Lake Nona Golf & Country Club. The Fighting Illini posted a 12-under-par 276 but are nine shots behind No. 17 Texas Tech (-21), which vaulted into the lead thanks to a 9-under-par round by Guillermo Pereira, who holds the individual lead. Freshman Dylan Meyer (-4) led the way for Illinois and is in a three-way tie for eighth place after the first round.

No. 4 Florida State (-18), No. 5 Vanderbilt (-17) and Illinois are all within nine strokes, while North Florida (-10) and No. 14 New Mexico (-8) round out the top six positions through the first day. All of the top six teams are closely bunched within a 13-stroke margin.

"I'll never find fault with a 12-under-par round, but we have to come out and match what's going on around us a little better on a day like this," Illini head coach Mike Small said. "We're just in fast company down here and this is a fast golf course, so you've got to be ready to get after it. We found our stride late in the round, which is good. But tomorrow we need to get off to a quicker start.

"We have to go get it," Small said. "They aren't going to come back to us on this golf course. We're going to have to keep punching and keep moving forward. The way you shoot low as a team is you don't try to force a square peg in a round hole. We just need all five guys to shoot under par and we'll get back in this thing. We ran into some hot teams today, so we tip our caps to them."

Illini juniors Thomas Detry (-3) and Charlie Danielson (-3) are tied for 16th individually, while senior Brian Campbell (-2) sits in a tie for 27th place and rounds out the Illini's counting scores for the first round. Freshman Nick Hardy's even-par 72 was Illinois' dropped score on the day.

Across the board, the Illini were consistent as all five competing Illini finished the first round at or under par - one of only two teams in the tournament, along with Florida State, to do so.

Illinois tees off round two on hole No. 1 at 7:50 a.m. CT alongside North Florida and New Mexico.