05/23/2026
West Bend Baseball Association Statement on the Campbellsport at West Bend East WIAA Regional Game on Thursday, May 28, 2026.
For the second time in three seasons, the West Bend Baseball Association has been faced with the difficult reality that Carl M. Kuss Memorial Field cannot host a Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association (WIAA) postseason game, not because of anything wrong with our facility, but because of an outdated rule that fails to account for modern turf fields.
The WBBA has invested tremendous time, resources, and community effort into building a state-of-the-art facility that has served our players and community exceptionally well. Since 2019, weather related cancellations have been reduced by more than 75%. That achievement, however, comes with one significant limitation: as a turf facility, metal spikes are not permitted on the field surface. This is a standard and widely accepted practice across turf facilities at every level of baseball.
This past Monday, West Bend East earned the right to host Campbellsport in the opening round of the 2026 WIAA Spring Baseball Tournament. By Wednesday evening, it was determined that Campbellsport's players do not have molded cleats or turf shoes available and under the WIAA's interpretation of NFHS Rule 1-5, which explicitly permits metal cleats, a host school cannot require visiting players to use alternative footwear during a sanctioned tournament game. As a result, West Bend East was forced to find an alternative venue, displacing our players from the field they have called home all season long.
The WBBA believes this rule is outdated and is being applied in a way that produces deeply unfair outcomes. Metal cleats cause real, measurable damage to turf pitching mounds and home plate areas, damage that costs our community money and undermines the very investment we made to improve baseball in West Bend. The fact that our facility is fully accepted for regular season play but disqualified from hosting playoff games under this same rule is both inconsistent and illogical, yet allowing other host sites with modern turf surfaces, including sectional sites to move forward is inconsistent at best.
We respectfully but firmly call on the WIAA, Executive Director Stephanie Hauser, Associate Director of Baseball Mel Dow, the WIAA Board of Control, and the Wisconsin Baseball Coaches Association to address this gap with a commonsense rule, one that allows turf facilities to require appropriate footwear during postseason play, just as many state, and tournament organizations across the country already do. The current policy punishes student athletes and host communities for investing in high quality, safe, well maintained, modern facilities. That is wrong, and it needs to change.
Finally, and most importantly: to the West Bend East players, we are truly sorry. This facility was built for you. You earned a home regional game through your hard work all season, and you deserve to play it on your field, not at a field 30 miles away from your home. We are grateful beyond words to Wisconsin Lutheran College Warriors Baseball and WLC Head Coach Andy Schwall for their generosity and character in opening their facility on short notice for these young men, who did absolutely nothing wrong. You are what this is all about, and we will keep fighting to make sure this doesn't happen again.
Craig Larsen
West Bend Baseball Association
