Trending
The Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association announced Thursday that the Altoona Area High School Fieldhouse will host the 2025 PIAA Team Wrestling Championships on Friday, Feb. 7 and Saturday, Feb. 8.
"I think this is an outstanding opportunity, not only for our school district but for the Altoona community," Altoona athletic director Phil Riccio said. "To be hosting the team dual state championship over the weekend of Feb. 7-8 with the amount of people we'll be able to draw into this community, with being able to show off our town and our athletic department and school district, it's a great opportunity. We have a great facility for team wrestling, and we're very excited to host it."
The event is usually held in Hershey's Giant Center, but that venue is unavailable during the needed dates this year.
Altoona lost the Class 3A regional when it was eliminated by the PIAA. Instead of having five regions in Class 3A, the PIAA reduced the regionals to four with an average of 62.5 teams in each regional.
"I'm always going to miss not having triple-A regionals at the Fieldhouse, because I always thought that was an outstanding event," Riccio said. "This sort of just came along because there were some hosting issues with using the Giant Center. We were able to step up and take it, and I think everyone in the state is going to be extremely thrilled with the event we put on."
Instead of hosting 16 teams at the state championships, the PIAA will hold preliminary and first-round matches on Tuesday, Feb. 4. Those duals will be held at the higher seed.
"It will be run similar to how we've run the District 6 and regional tournament," Riccio said. "One of the key factors was back coming out of COVID, when we hosted the super regional prior to states, the way we ran that event with the facility set up and parking and gym space -- that was a key contributor to show we could host and handle the state championship. By doing things the right way all the time, things come your way, and this is coming to Altoona."
Tickets will be available through hometown ticketing on the PIAA website the week going into it.
"PIAA is appreciative of the Administration of Altoona Area School District for their willingness to host the event and for the work of the Wrestling Steering Committee in bringing this new format to fruition," PIAA said in a statement on the official release. "Ticket and Altoona hotel information will be posted to the PIAA website shortly."