WATCH: Soccer Insider

MOUNT PLEASANT - The women’s soccer team got its initial taste of live 11-on-11 game action for the 2012 season on Tuesday evening as it competed in the first of two intrasquad scrimmages at the CMU Soccer Complex.

The team was equally divided into maroon and gold squads and competed in two thirty-minute periods and a twenty-minute period. The scrimmage marked the end of the first week of practice, with 10 days remaining until the season opener at Detroit on Friday, Aug. 17.

Head coach Neil Stafford was looking forward to the scrimmage not necessarily for a result, but rather as an opportunity to put the drills the team has been working on and refining in practice for the past week into a live game setting. Overall he was satisfied with the effort the players gave throughout the scrimmage in doing so.

“To be able to see the team go against each other 11-on-11 and see them open things up and really let them have a go at one another was great,” Stafford said. “It was entertaining and it was nice to see some freshmen do some great things and nice to see some upperclassmen looking like they’re already pretty sharp.”

The freshman class, numbering 12 student-athletes, was introduced to its first sampling of soccer at an NCAA Division I level.

The Chippewas will compete in one more intrasquad scrimmage on Sunday, with the teams divided between the freshmen and the upperclassmen.

On Monday the team will visit with young patients at the Helen DeVos Hospital in Grand Rapids.

Following its season-opening match against Detroit, the Chippewas will host the first match of the season at the CMU Soccer Complex as they host Evansville Sunday, Aug. 19.