My son's first year wrestling he started the season wrestling in 3 Oklahoma tournaments before the Kansas season kicked off. Lost every single match, but improved each time. once he hit the Kansas season, he placed in every tournament he wrestled in and we sent him to both Open and Novice tournaments after the Andover tournament where he pretty much just mopped up and ran moves on everyone we stopped going to Novice tournaments. I feel that the mat time he gained that year in doing that was very valuable and helped him "catch up" to the kids his age who had been wrestling since they were 4 or 5 years old.