After much anticipation, the Austin football team will play its first game on the new artificial turf when it hosts Winona at Art Hass Stadium 7 p.m. Friday.

The Packers are coming off a 31-7 loss to Rochester John Marshall, which is ranked No. 7 in Class AAAAA, but they won’t have trouble getting pumped up for Friday’s contest.

“We love playing on our field anyway and now you’ve got that great surface that we have,” Austin head coach Brett Vesel said. “That’s awesome and it’ll be a motivator for us I think.”

The Winhawks (1-0 overall) are coming off an emotional 20-14 win over Rochester Century in OT at Winona last week. Century had a chance to win the game, but it missed a field goal and threw an interception on its two overtime possessions.

Winona running back Tanner Remlinger racked up 141 yards and he scored the game winning TD for the Winhawks. The Packers are hoping to stop Remlinger and force the Winhawks to become one dimensional.

“They’ve got a nice running back. They’ve got a nice running game,” Vesel said. “They’ve got a quarterback that can throw too and they’re pretty balanced. They’ve got some good stuff going on.”

With almost three weeks of practice under their belt, the Packers are starting to establish themselves a little more in certain roles. Wednesday’s practice was a good one, according to Vesel.

“We’re getting better. We’ve still got a ways to go. We’ve got some guys in different positions,” Vesel said. “We had a good practice today, guys got after it and we got better.”