this was the first tournament I've been to that had both open and novice brackets... while I thought this would be good use of my time, being as one son is in open, the other in novice- I'm doubting we will go back next year.

isn't the point of NOVICE competition to learn how things are done?! my son's opponents were given a couple penalty points, and he just didn't understand what was going on. no warnings, just points given off the bat! the reff on matt 4 had a hard time keeping score- he would hold the WRONG hand up, and not correct himself making it hell for the table workers to understang what was going on! I keep a notebook with all my childrens matches in it- I have bout sheets for them, and keep track of score as well. I've known this to be usefull if questions of scoring ever come up, and this day was no exception. both the oposing teams coach and our coach said "yes, what SHE has should be right" and the reff threw his hands in the air shrugged his shoulders and said "I don't know, we'll just go from what the table has on the flipcards" his scoring didn't get better as the day went on either... I noticed at least 8 more matches where the coaches had to stop things to go over score with him.

on a good note, I did like seeing brackets posted when I walked in the door at 6am! it was nice to be able to get that info before a rush of 400 parents and coaches ten min before start of wrestling. no, it didn't start as scheduled, but things moved smoothly after it did start.