Crowded hallways. Sponsor tables. Long lines. In the Hershey Giant Center, junior Gavin Ciampoli was listening to music, warming up and mentally preparing for his wrestling match. 

“It was my third time there,” Ciampoli said. “I remember my first time was pretty nerve wracking. I was excited to start the tournament off, hopefully try and get a state championship. I was a little bit anxious but excited.”

When he stepped off the mat, he was the 160th AAA state champion.

“I was so happy for him,” head wrestling coach Joel Gilbert said. “I was so happy for the whole wrestling community and our community in general.”

On March 6, the wrestling team traveled to Hershey for a three-day state wrestling tournament. Four Altoona wrestlers qualified after their performance at the District VI and Western Region tournaments, placing in the top five within the region. As one of four regions in Pennsylvania, the Western Region geographically encompasses Lewistown to Erie, including the Pittsburgh area. 

“Gavin is a great kid, very worthy of becoming a state champion,” Gilbert said. “He’s worked very hard to get there and is a very disciplined young man. I mean, he eats right. He does all the right things, goes to the extra practices and works on new things. And he goes out—he’s not afraid to do some [new things].”

“I know obviously winning the state title is pretty surreal and cool, but just spending time with the team and having fun at the hotels and any other tournaments was pretty awesome,” Ciampoli said.

At the District VI championships, freshman Dom Picciotti earned gold at 106 lbs., Deklan Barr earned gold at 127 lbs., Ciampoli earned gold at 160 lbs. and senior Braiden Weaver claimed his fourth District VI gold medal at 133 lbs. and was named the tournament’s most outstanding wrestler.

“Winning my fourth district title was pretty amazing for me,” Weaver said. “I always wanted to follow a bunch of great wrestlers. I’ve won [the title] four times as well. It felt pretty good accomplishing it four times, looking at all the medals in my room, and I got the fourth one. Makes it pretty memorable. It’s my senior year, and I get to wrestle with some of the best guys in the country.”

“It was a great season,” Gilbert said. “We tied for the most wins in school history. It was 15 [wins]. We had four district champions, a regional champion, a state champion, two state place finishers and four state qualifiers. It was a pretty good year.”

Ciampoli’s achievement marks the first time in over 50 years that an Altoona wrestler has clinched a state championship.

“It was Steve Maurey,” Gilbert said. “Steve Maurey won in 1974, and I always tell the story that when Steve Maurey won, I was six months old at that time. You’re looking at 52 years, right there.”

To prepare for the tournaments, Ciampoli and the rest of the wrestling team practices for an hour and a half every day during the season.

“They’re very intense practices,” Gilbert said. “There’s really not a lot of downtime, a lot of movement, a lot of involvement. We keep them pretty busy and active. We practice about five times a week. And these kids also go to club practices and lift weights here at school, they’re in the weight lifting class, so they do get approximately three workouts a day, at least a few times a week, and all that accumulating together gets them ready to go for the season in the postseason.” 

Weaver prepared for the state championship by spending time in the wrestling room, sharpening his skills and “making sure everything’s good and [his] knees are healthy and [his] body feels good to compete.”

“What drives me to become the best would probably be that the sport is something that you can’t really master,” Weaver said. “You have to be the most consistent. You have to be the most hard working. There’s no shortcuts in wrestling. The time you put into wrestling is what you get out of it.”

Weaver committed to wrestle for Penn State University. Ciampoli plans to attend the U.S. Open Championships in April. He intends to continue wrestling after high school.

“It was surreal,” Ciampoli said. “It was pretty cool and exciting, but I know there’s a lot more things in life than wrestling, so [I’ll] try and stay humble and keep working towards the next thing.”