Business

La Crosse Center to host first-ever WIAA girls wrestling state tournament Saturday

Published

2 years ago

January 27, 2022

Brad Williams

The La Crosse Center is getting ready for another big sporting event this coming weekend.

The arena will host the first-ever WIAA state high school girls wrestling tournament on Saturday.

Operations manager Kris Salzwedel is excited about the tournament coming in.

“They’re startin’ it here in La Crosse, so we’re anxious to see how that’s gonna go,” says Kris. “They’re gonna start moving in on Friday, and the event is all day Saturday, so we’re gonna get a lot of Wisconsin publicity.”

Salzwedel says the Center is also working on a possible deal to bring the Clash wrestling tournament back to La Crosse for another five years.

The nationwide contest for high school wrestlers has been held in Rochester for years, but this year’s event was moved to the La Crosse Center on short notice.

Now that the La Crosse Center is fully reopened after remodeling and COVID, the building’s convention calendar is starting to fill up again.

The Center hosted 18 conventions and meetings in 2021. Twenty-five events are already booked for this year, with three more yet to commit.

The projection for the next five years already shows 24 conventions booked in 2023, with 10 more tentatively scheduled. The total could get close to 40 events the following year.

Brad Williams

A native of Prairie du Chien, Brad graduated from UW - La Crosse and has worked in radio news for more than 30 years, mostly in the La Crosse area. He regularly covers local courts and city and county government. Brad produces the features "Yesterday in La Crosse" and "What's Buried on Brad's Desk." He also writes the website "Triviazoids," which finds odd connections between events that happen on a certain date, and he writes and performs with the local comedy group Heart of La Crosse. Brad been featured on several national TV programs because of his memory skills.