There has been a bit of a change of scenery for No. 19 Illinois soccer this week during practice.

In order to prepare for Sunday’s contest at Northwestern’s Lakeside Athletic Field, the Illini have held practice at the Campus Rec Turf Fields. Playing on the oft-dreaded artificial grass is always a factor when playing Northwestern, and head coach Janet Rayfield wants to make sure her team is up for the challenge.

“I think it’s great that we have the opportunity to train on (turf) because it is a little bit different,” Rayfield said. “The bounce is a little bit different, the run of the ball certainly runs true and it runs fast, so it is different than what we’re used to playing on grass.”

Winless so far in the Big Ten, the Wildcats (4-6-2, 0-5-1 Big Ten) don’t seem to have many advantages over their opponents. By becoming accustomed to playing on turf, the Illini (9-3-0, 4-2-0) will look to take away Northwestern’s homefield advantage as well.

“Usually we have two games in a weekend, so we don’t get to spend as much time on (turf) when you have to play on two surfaces in three days,” Rayfield said. “With it being one game, we can kind of focus on getting used to this surface, and hopefully that helps when we show up at Northwestern on Sunday.”

Since Northwestern is Illinois’ only opponent this weekend, the team will practice the rest of the week at the Campus Rec Turf Fields in order to fully prepare for the surface change.

Playing on artificial turf always comes with a slightly higher risk of injury, so Illinois might have to play more carefully. In fact, according to a January 2010 study, modern turf causes a 45 percent higher strain on the ACL compared to when playing on natural grass.

However, the Illini have embraced different challenges all season, whether it was the suffocating heat in Charleston, travelling long distances in between games or dealing with key injuries. Playing on turf will just be another experience under Illinois’ belt.

“It’s just a bit of a transition, but soccer is soccer, and this team does well with adversity,” freshman defender Sarah Warren said. “We’re going to be on (turf) all week, so I don’t think it’ll be a problem once we play them.”

Joey can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter @joeyfigueroa3.