It's been my experience here in SOWEGA, that teams who play Spring games, tend to have a leg up when approaching the Fall schedule! In the Spring, a coach is able to assess his talent pool in a real game situation against an opponent, and not against his own people! It also cuts out a large degree of assessment later, when the team only has ten days to prepare for the season in the Fall. It has worked fairly well for my lil team recently. As they have made it to the large class state semis or better, nine out of the past ten seasons! With the other being a quarterfinal exit, against the future state champions!