Now that the Illinois soccer team has officially clinched a berth in the Big Ten Tournament, it can breathe a collective sigh of relief. There is still plenty of work to be done, though, and the Illini look to be in their best form of the season.

Head coach Janet Rayfield said she thinks Illinois (10-7-1, 5-6-1 Big Ten) is playing its best soccer of the season, which she attributes to the depth and versatility the team has found.

“We’ve been able to sort of spread our experience out now,” Rayfield said. “We’ve got Hope (D’Addario), who’s now more experienced in the back line, and Aliina (Weykamp) with some experience in the midfield, and we’ve always had Jannelle (Flaws) with the experience up front. I think that balance now is allowing us to play the way that we want to play with some experience and composure that we needed in order to do that.”

Usually a defender, Weykamp replaced the injured Casey Conine in the midfield the past two matches. Freshman defender Sarah Warren held down Weykamp’s spot in the back line, and the Illini allowed just two goals and 13 total shots all weekend.

Players have been switching positions all season without much of an issue, which is a testament to Illinois’ versatility.

To go along with its adaptability and deep bench, Illinois has recently spread out the scoring. Flaws is the obvious first option on offense and leads the team in goals by a wide margin, but three different Illini found the back of the net this past weekend — none of whom were Flaws.

“We were just coming at them with different stuff and trying different things, and the whole team was getting forward,” Flaws said. “We had a lot of numbers in the box and up, and that was part of the reason we were getting so many shots.”

Freshmen Kara Marbury and Emily Osoba were two of the three Illini goal scorers last weekend. Illinois has had to rely on freshman contributions all year, and with the regular season coming to a close, those freshmen are starting to play like veterans.

Marbury has been a huge addition since returning from her foot injury and provides stability on the front line with Flaws. Freshman defender Abby Elinsky has meshed well in the back line and showed off her versatility by starting a few games at forward while Marbury was out. Osoba has provided quality minutes off the bench all season, and the aforementioned Warren has now started 10 games on the back line, which has been one of the most solid areas of the field for Illinois.

“I think it’s part of our development in that we’re starting to have confidence in each other,” Rayfield said. “Freshmen scoring goals and all of that is some of the experience that we have. This is a team playing together collectively, and I think if we can continue to do that, we can win some games.”

With players returning from nagging injuries, better shot distribution and a strong sense of trust throughout the lineup, there isn’t much to complain about for the Illini as they head into their final match of the season on Friday against Wisconsin.

Now they just need to keep it all together for the postseason.

“I think these last three games have shown that we’ve proved to ourselves that we deserve to run against any other team in the country, even the top teams in the country,” junior midfielder Reagan Robishaw said. “Now we have to prove to other teams that we’re coming. We’re coming for the Big Ten tournament and we’re not a team to just knock around.”

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